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:
 Describe the conditions that prompted the reform to take action.
 Discuss the efforts of the reformer to improve these conditions (including
reference to their major works)
 Describe a change in the United States that resulted from the efforts of the
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.)
List of Reformers
Ida Tarbell
Lincoln Steffens
Upton Sinclair
Theodore Dreiser
Jacob Riis
Horatio Alger
Frank Norris
Jane Addams
Marcus Garvey
WEB DuBois
Robert La Follete
Frances E. Willard
Eugene V. Debs
Booker T. Washington
Mother Jones
Frederick Law Olmstead
Big Bill Haywood
Alice Paul
William Jennings Bryan
Clarence Darrow
Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal/Trust
Busting
Taylorism – Scientific Management
Initiative, Referendum, Recall – Voting Reform
Mary Lease
John Muir
Ida B. Wells
Susan B. Anthony
Lewis Hine
Florence Kelley
Carrie Nation
Margaret Sanger
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Gifford Pinchot
Carrie Chapman Catt
LA Times Bombing
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Tulsa Riot
East St. Louis Riot
Lawrence Textile Strike
Washington Gladden
Frances Perkins
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.
Efforts to rein in corporate power.
Attempts to ameliorate the
effects of industrialization.
Efforts to make government cleaner,
less corrupt, and more democratic
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.