How Did Upton Sinclair Impact Society

The state of society has long been an influence on authors while writing their novels. In fact, many of their best works stem from the passion they feel for a particular cause. During the early 1900s, fair treatment of laborers in the United States of America was becoming an issue. At that time, word of the American Dream and one’s ability to become successful in America was spreading to foreigners, and so they rushed to America by the boatload. Employers often took advantage of the ignorance of the immigrants, and worked them to death for little pay. Upton Sinclair sympathized with these immigrants and in response, wrote his socialist novel, The Jungle, in 1906. Influenced by his own experiences and the state of labor in American society,

He was born in 1878 into a family that struggled because of the father’s alcoholism, and many people consider this poverty-stricken childhood to be the main reason for his sympathy towards the lower classes (“Upton Sinclair” 2005). Still, Sinclair was a brilliant child, graduating with a degree in English literature at the young age of nineteen. His tendency to lean towards socialism could be seen in his early behavior, such as when he moved to a shack in the forests of Canada in order to escape the materialistic and capitalist greed that suffocated him in New York City (“Jungle, The” 2015). After writing his novel, Manassas, Sinclair garnered the attention of several socialists, who succeeded in winning him over to their cause. During this time, he eagerly studied many socialist writings and eventually started writing for several socialist publications (“Upton Sinclair” 2005). For Sinclair, this marked the beginning of a lifelong battle for the political support of the American

In addition, Sinclair took many of his ideas for the plot of The Jungle from real-life events such as the 1904 meat-packing strike in Chicago, and from information he collected from firsthand experience in the stockyards. This personal touch to his writing, coupled with his ability to emotionally move the human heart, made his book a major success across the United States and all over the world. Still, as his writing style is considered to be simple, many literary critics disapprove of the abundant acclaim this novel has received. Sinclair himself also disapproved of his novel’s reception, as it led to changes in the sanitation of the food industry instead of in worker’s rights. Still, no one can doubt the impact Sinclair had on the state of American industry. Reform is what he sought, and reform is what he