Chicago Meatpacking Industry In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

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WHAT IS “THE JUNGLE”? The Jungle is book written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, published by Jabber & Company in the state of New York. It contains details on the Chicago meatpacking industry, originally written to help bring awareness to the harsh conditions of immigrants workers in these industries. The public, however, too the terrible, unsanitary conditions of these industries, with rats running along the meat, and employees going to the bathroom in the same spot they work with the meat in. They were appalled by these utterly horrible conditions, and could not believe that Chicago, being the center of the meatpacking industry in the nation at the time, due to its connection to railroads across the country that made it an easy center of distribution …show more content…

When Jurgis is allowed to leave, he find that his family has been evicted from their home, and that they had been staying with other relatives. Ona passes away during giving birth, leading to Jurgis’s spiral into deep depression, leading to his alcoholic tendencies. He becomes a beggar, and an addict to morphine. H has lost all communication to his other relatives, later discovering that one of his relatives has become a prostitute. At the end of the book, Jurgis wanders into a social rally, completely distraught, due to his emotional, and most likely physical, pain. The speech that he hears at this rally inspires him, leading him to join said party, to which it helps him get a job, allowing him to find one of his relatives, Teta …show more content…

This automatically directly links to the NHD theme exploration, as Sinclair had to further investigate industries on his own, discovering the atrocities that they contained, further leading him to personally encounter the lack of sanitation in said institutions, resulting in him revealing all of the gross details to the public, to which they finally learned what was really in their meat. This connects to the NHD theme encounter, as without one, Sinclair would have never personally seen and experienced the bad side to the meatpacking industry. With the public now enraged with how their health was endangered, this must have lead to some sort of exchange, another NHD theme, of ideas between government and the city of Chicago, on how they can improve the sanitation of food, preventing any sort of diseases and sickness caused from consuming dirty