Progressivism in America
*Research and write about one of the Progressive Era topics in American History.
You can pick any of the following, or come up with your own:
Prohibition, Anti-Lynching, Women’s Rights, Labor Rights, Fight for Natural Resources, etc.
**The topic must be a part of North American history and should fall between the loose dates of 1880 to about 1940 (or anywhere in between). Here are some
questions to guide your thoughts:
– What is the importance of this topic in our history?
– Were there any major laws passed pertaining to your topic, when, and by whom?
– What effect did your topic have on American society?
– And in the very last part of the body of your paper, feel free to tie your topic back into contemporary issues — Does your topic have any
legacies affecting us today? (But this part should be a shorter section of your paper — see note at very bottom).
**Start the paper by stating your topic. Feel free to tell me what you already know or don’t know about your topic. The introduction is your chance to make
it your paper! Don’t forget to come up with an interesting title!
• Use the body of the paper to dive into the research for your topic.
• You need a minimum of three sources for this paper, and you can definitely use your textbook (The American Promise) as well as internet sources.
• A last page entitled “Works Cited” where you will list ALL of the sources that you used for your paper. You are welcome to use direct quotes, but
only a few (three max) and keep them short (two or three lines each max) since I mostly want to read your work. Be sure to cite all paraphrasing in the
paper.
**For the conclusion, personalize your paper once again. Tell the reader why you think that this topic is important to American history.
**Remember that this is a history paper, so although the professor wants me to conclude the paper with how this history topic is important to us today,
this is only a small section towards the end while the majority of the body of the paper needs to be history, not contemporary.
