US History - Cereal Box That Have Changed American History Project

Students will be re-designing a cereal box to honor a person/event from American history that has created CHANGE. The person, reform movement, or event may be chosen from the list based on the Progressive Era of 1890-1919. • The first step in the assignment is to choose a person, event, or movement from the Progressive Era that created significant change. • Students should then conduct research on this person, event, or movement using their class notes, their textbooks, and other outside resources (both internet and print resources).

• Students should then begin re-designing a cereal box to honor that person, event, or movement using the following guidelines: o The cereal box that you re-design should be covered with white or light-colored paper. o The front of the box should include the name of the cereal – a creative name that somehow relates to your topic. It should include an appropriately-sized picture of person, technological invention, or movement as well. This can be printed from an online source, photocopied, or hand-drawn. It might also include other slogans, catch-phrases, or other comments that relate to your figure. (For example, one dealing with FDR might say “now available in two flavors – First and Second New Deal” – or one on Woodrow Wilson might say “now includes 14 essential vitamins and minerals” in reference to the 14 Points.) o The back of the box should include the most detailed information about your figure. Basically, you are writing a historical essay on your person, event, technological invention, or movement. The essay should include the following components: 1.1.1.1 � Describe the conditions that prompted the reform to take action. 1.1.1.1.1.1 � Discuss the efforts of the reformer to improve these conditions (including 1.1.1.2 reference to their major works) 1.1.1.3 � Describe a change in the United States that resulted from the efforts of the 1.1.1.3.1 reformer and his or her followers. �The back may include some small pictures, but should mostly be a two-column historical/biographical essay, written in a 12 point font, single spaced and fully-justified. o One side panel should include at least one interesting quote from your person, event, or movement and a brief contextual background as to when and why the particular quote was given, or to what event the quote refers. o One side panel should include some random trivial facts about your person, event, or movement – important relatives, funny facts, strange facts about the person’s death, interesting information about a political campaign, etc. o The box top should include some kind of reference to the most significant event in your person, technological invention, or movement. (The thing that made your person, event, or movement significant). This reference could be in the form or a slogan or other brief statement – but it should be brief. It is to be used as a “grabber” to make your reader interested in reading the historical essay on the back of your box. o The box bottom should include your name, your class period, and should also list any and all sources that you used during your research.

Each person has to present their nomination speech (short) as to why they deserve the award (based on information on your cereal box), and they have to have an acceptance speech ready in case they win (who they’d like to thank, etc.)

Ida Tarbell Lincoln Steffens Taylorism – Scientific Management Upton Sinclair Initiative, Referendum, Recall – Voting Reform Theodore Dreiser Mary Lease Jacob Riis John Muir Horatio Alger Ida B. Wells Frank Norris Susan B. Anthony Jane Addams Lewis Hine Marcus Garvey Florence Kelley WEB DuBois Carrie Nation Robert La Follete Margaret Sanger Frances E. Willard Charlotte Perkins Gilman Eugene V. Debs Gifford Pinchot Booker T. Washington Carrie Chapman Catt Mother Jones LA Times Bombing Frederick Law Olmstead Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Big Bill Haywood Tulsa Riot Alice Paul East St. Louis Riot William Jennings Bryan Lawrence Textile Strike Clarence Darrow Washington Gladden Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal/Trust Frances Perkins Busting Jeanette Rankin Madam CJ Walker An awards show to celebrate how the United States dealt with the most significant problems facing the United States as we began the 20th Century?

Intro: The rapid growth of the United States during the second half of the 19th century, and the problems that accompanied this development, resulted in a period of transition and reform.

Goal: For the student to be able to recognize and understand the need to reexamine domestic goals and priorities. “A government strong enough to govern the nation and restrained enough not to imperil sacred civil liberties.” The American Republic was founded on the concept of equality. The founders of the nation held it to be a “self-evident truth” that all people are created equal, being endowed with the same basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Reform movements were started in various periods as a response to changing social conditions with the belief that the betterment of society was a possibility. Americans believed that in a democracy the people could create a better society through their own efforts.

Despite their anxieties about the problems in all three areas, progressives accepted the new modern order. They did not seek to turn back the clock, or to return to a world of smaller businesses and agrarian idealism. Nor, as a general rule, did they aim to dismantle big business. Rather, they wished to regulate industry and mitigate the effects of capitalism on behalf of the public good. To secure the public good, they looked to an expanded role for the government at the local, state, as well as national levels.