Madison, Wis.

Pleasant Rowland
61

How'd she get so rich? Rowland has made a lot of little girls very happy—and cost their parents a lot of money. The creator of American Girl dolls sold her company to Mattel for more than $700 million in 1998. Rowland and husband, Jerome Frautschi, are major philanthropists in Madison and in Aurora, N.Y., the home of Rowland's alma mater, Aurora College.

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