Examples Of Working Conditions During The 1900's

Hardships

During the 1900’s it was very tough to find work. Finding work was crucial because without a job it would be hard to provide for others and their families. The working conditions were most likely rough if there were jobs for others. The working conditions were so bad that it could make you sick or end up in a hospital. Lewis Carroll Wade is incorrect when he says Upton Sinclair is exaggerating. Upton Sinclair did not exaggerate the details of labor in the novel because he described the awful working conditions, the regular amount of pay and the meat products made in factories.

In his essay, Lewis Carroll Wade talked about the disgusting meat that was being allowed to be sold in Chicago. Wade says, “As Chicago chilled beef invaded

The workers at the packing houses did not know what they were getting into. They just knew they needed the work to survive. Wade stated that, “The packers are said to prefer tubercular cattle because they ‘fatten more quickly.’ They hire ‘regular alchemists’ to concoct meat products out of knuckle joints, gullets, skins, moldy scrap ends and those poisoned rats, appropriately spiced, colored and preserved” (7). The packers preferred tubercular meat because the meat that was bad to eat was made to look like it was still edible. The packers and the consumers were both deceived by the alchemists. The packers and the consumers did not know of the illnesses they could catch. The consumers purchased the Chicago beef because of the price. Sinclair portrays this in the novel when the inspector does not notice many carcasses being evaluated. Sinclair states, “and while he was talking with you you could hardly be so ungrateful as to notice that a dozen carcasses were passing him untouched” (41). It shows that the inspector was not doing their job. By not doing his job, it causes the consumers to be deceived. They are deceived because the consumers do not know what they are putting into their