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How Upton Sinclair Changed American

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Innocent Belief Famously known for his novel, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair changed American life in the early 1900s without a doubt through his literature. However, many don’t realize that Sinclair reformed American life in more than one instance, through more than one book. At times, he even reached beyond his realm of literature to discuss other needed adjustments. Besides the serendipitous changes he created for the meat packaging industry, Sinclair’s other actions throughout his life are, subjectively, important to American history, according to Anthony Arthur. In his biography, Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair, Arthur reveals his bias towards Sinclair, while supplying a relevant nature to his writing across an in-depth review of Sinclair’s …show more content…

The following chapters discuss other key points in his life, but even the littlest details of Sinclair’s life are not omitted from the pages. While attempting to produce other successful novels, Sinclair also stepped outside of his literacy realm by constructing Helicon Hall, a Utopian colony like home for aspiring artists to live together, and later, joining filmmakers in Hollywood. After this idea literally burned to the ground, he reached out to people around the world searching for friends for him and his wife. Due to their continuing distance, Meta was swept off her feet by another man, who Sinclair had previously befriended, leaving her former husband and son in the dust. Although many of Sinclair’s books were failures after The Jungle, he bounced back with successful stories, such as Oil!, but as his success grew, his relationship with his son strained. To cover his loneliness, Sinclair married his second wife, Mary Craig, and the two finally settled down in Pasadena, California. It was in this location that Sinclair had numerous important events happen to him, but one of the most interesting was when he decided to run for governor of California. Proving to be a tough candidate to beat, Sinclair nearly won the election if it weren’t for the negative publicity he got

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