POP! Series US Industrialist

I wanted to share a lesson that started first with a general idea that thanks to Twitter has shaped into a much more creative project for my students to learn more about the business leaders of The Gilded Age.

When my students and I were in our study of the Industrial Era and The Gilded Age I would project famous well known modern leaders in business. I would used people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mary Barra, Warren Buffet, Mark Cuban, and Indra Nooyi.  I would share some basic information about each person like they company they work for or created and some general biographical information.  I than had students brainstorm why they thought they were so successful in their business world.

I than shared from students a video clip from the History Channel's "The Men Who Built America." titled Traits of a Titan. Many of the things my student's mentioned were traits mentioned in the video clip.


We would use a Gingerbread Man diagram and draw a line down the middle. On the left side we would label it "Captains of Industry" and list many of these characteristics shared from our initial brainstorm and add additional characteristics shared in the Traits of a Titan video clip. I would share with students some general introductory information about three major business leaders during The Gilded Age: Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan.

Prior to this lesson students had read about some of the problems of The Gilded Age from poor working conditions, child labor, and poor living conditions in the Tenements. I would also share with students how some felt that these business leaders were more like "Robber Barons" and used their power to crush their competition and use this power in harmful ways. We took our Gingerbread Man Diagram and on the right side of the line we would list characteristics of a Robber Baron.

I would let students pick an Industrialist from The Gilded Age and have them research more about this person and write a reflection paragraph to make the case if they felt they should be remembered as a Captain of Industry or a Robber Baron.

One of the great things about being on Twitter is learning about ideas to make projects for students fun. I follow Quinn Rollins on Twitter and really enjoy may of his project ideas. You definitely need to check out some of his amazing Templates on his blog Play Like A Pirate.

One of this Templates that really stood out to me was his FUNKO POP template. My family enjoys collecting many of these figures from FUNKO POP such as StarWar characters and Marvel Characters. I thought this would be a great addition to my original idea and allow for more creativity for my students. 

So last year I took my original Gingerbread Man lesson and incorporated his FUNKO POP Template to have students not only reflect on their industrialist role in The Gilded Age but also design a FUNKO POP character based on their industrialist.

I originally had students pick from this list:  John D. Rockefeller, JP Morgan, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford. These were people with information easily found in our textbook as well as highlighted in the History Channel's "Men Who Build America" documentary. I was very proud of what my students were able to create and even allowed them to design additional POP figures for modern business leaders. 

After I shared this on Twitter with Quinn Rollins he said I really needed to look at Madam CJ Walker as an option for student research. I had to sadly admit I didn't know much about her, but I thought I would do some research and was amazed by her story. So I made a commitment this year to include her and add more names to include a greater diversity of business leaders from this industrial period.

So this year I added Madam CJ Walker, Annie Malone, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Robert Church Jr to my original list of Rockefeller, Morgan, Edison, and Ford.

I really enjoyed the expanded list this year and I think so did many of my students. This is an area I have been really working on his being more deliberate and inclusive in some of the historical people I use as examples in our different history units. I had a presentation slide being presented on my board about Madam CJ Walker that I hadn't switched yet when my next class was coming in. I had just switched the slide back to the intro to class slide and had a female student shout out "Hey I was reading this." I had to let her know that don't worry we would be talking more about her. She was really excited to learn more about this African-American business woman. A woman who looked like her and to someone she could make a connection.

There are still some "tweaks" I need to make to this project, but I really enjoy how this has developed from my original Gingerbread Man idea to making FUNKO POP figures. I need to help students strengthen their writing and be more deliberate on there evidence based arguments and this will be something I will be working on improving in this project next year.

A huge shout-out to Quinn Rollins for sharing these ideas and providing me some great feedback that really made this a much stronger project for my students.

Here are some of the websites I share with students to help them with their research of their Industrialist.

(1) Research Resources:

Intro Videos to some of the Industrialists:

The Traits of a Titan: 

Rockefeller's Standard Oil:  

The Rise of JP Morgan:  

The Rise of Henry Ford:  

The Men Who Built America Andrew Carnegie:  

Biographies of Industrialists:

Madam CJ Walker: 

Madam CJ Walker:   

The Story of John D. Rockefeller: 

The Story of Andrew Carnegie: 

The Story of JP Morgan:  

The Story of Thomas Edison:  

The Story of Henry Ford:  

Rockefeller's Standard Oil:  

The Rise of JP Morgan:  

The Rise of Henry Ford:  

The Men Who Built America Andrew Carnegie:  

The Men Who Built America Cornelius Vanderbilt:  

Robert Reed Church Jr:  

Annie Malone:

Do you have any great projects you do in your study of the Industrial Era? I would love to hear about them in the comments section below.