APUSH - Cereal Box That Has Changed American History Project
Assigned Monday, March 17, 2014 – Due Monday, March 24, 2014
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 designing a cereal box to honor that person, event, or movement using the
following guidelines:
o The cereal box that you 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 US 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 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 trivial facts about your person, event, or movement – important
relatives, funny facts, strange facts about the person’s death, interesting info 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 US dealt with the most significant problems
facing the US 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 “selfevident 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.