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Immigrant Workers In The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

1151 Words5 Pages

During the early twentieth century, the United States underwent a great amount of growth and expansion as a result of the ongoing Industrial Revolution. Throughout the Industrial Revolution, the United States experienced a shift from being a largely agrarian society to being an industrial one. Mass production in factories, as opposed to goods being mainly produced by individuals, became the norm, and this greatly transformed the lives of working-class Americans. Cities became places of high job availability and opportunity, and as a result, many Americans moved from their farms to the cities to find work in one of the many factories. In addition to that, many workers emigrated from European countries in order to find work in American factories. …show more content…

Although this novel gained most of its fame for exposing the horrific conditions present in the meat-packing industry, rather than for its main intended purpose of speaking out for the immigrant workers, The Jungle had a great impact on the United States, as it led to a government response that improved the safety and wellbeing of both the producer and the …show more content…

Many readers of the novel found Sinclair’s depiction of the conditions found in meatpacking factories to be both shocking and disgusting, and as a result, they immediately called for the government to step in and fix this issue by passing legislation. This reaction from the American people, however, was so great that it overshadowed Sinclair’s main goal of writing the novel, which was to tell the struggles of the immigrant worker. The outrage of the people was aimed at the American government, especially President Theodore Roosevelt, who in a letter to Upton Sinclair said that “ the specific evils you point out shall, if their existence be proved, and if I have power, be eradicated” (Roosevelt). Following the outrage generated by the novel, President Roosevelt launched an investigation of the meatpacking factories, and following the conclusion of the investigation signed two pieces of legislation, the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act, into law. Although Sinclair intended for The Jungle to be a critique of the working conditions and rampant poverty of the time, most people focused primarily on the gory aspects of the novel, and thus, the novel became famous for this

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The Jungle by Upton Sinclair follows the main character Jurgis Rudkus who is an immigrant from Lithuania. Jurgis immigrated to the United States and made his way to Chicago in order to follow the path of a legendary hometown name, Jokubas, who supposedly made a lot of money in the states. Upon reaching the United States and arriving in Chicago they realized it would be much harder to establish an income in a city they weren’t familiar with. Their luck changed when they happened upon the infamous Jokubas and found out he ran a local delicatessen in the stockyards in Chicago. Jokubas helped them find a place to sleep for the night in a boarding house while they used those first days to look for work in order to move to a nicer place of living.

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This book caused society to “think about the nature of the system that was making such conditions necessary”. Conditions such as the ones presented in Sinclair’s book appalled the readers. Economically, Sinclair wrote “The Jungle” after she decided to investigate immigrant workers in the workplace. The book led to the “loss of the European market caused by their smaller competitors”. Europeans were concerned by the health issues “The Jungle”

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In early 1900, specifically, 1906, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was written. This novel told the story of a Lithuanian immigrant who worked in a filthy Chicago meatpacking plant. It exposed the meatpacking industry by stating their vile practices not only towards their meat but their workers as well. This was a result of the combination of many immigrants in the United States to pursue a better life, and the fact that many big industries were looking for ways to maximize their profit.

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In “ The Jungle”, the author Upton Sinclair states that “ I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach”. This means that Sinclair wanted to muckrake the Meat Packing Industry to seek attention for the workers, but instead food became a bigger concern. The characters Jurgis, Ona, and Marija with fellow family members are Lithuanian immigrants who came to PackingTown in hope for a better future, however they came to realize that the whole town is run by capitalist. Although Sinclair intentionally uses metaphors and similes to depict the characters struggle in the horrible living and working conditions in Packingtown, his purpose is undermined and overlooked by his use of realism to depict the food process.

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During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Progressive reformers worked to improve the social, political, and economic problems in American society. Throughout this time, muckrakers helped reformers by revealing injustices to Americans through journalism, books, campaigns, photographs, and political cartoons. Poor working conditions, low quality of consumer products, and inferior democracy were present in American life during the Progressive Era; reforms such as state actions, the Meat Inspection Act, and Direct Primary helped to eliminate these corruptions. An issue society faced during the Progressive Era was poor working conditions. In Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, he writes that if a person found anyone who uses knives in this factory,

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The Jungle depicts the Labor Union accurately but also fictionalizes Labor Union as well. In the book, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair accurately depicts labor unions when he talks about how they were always on strike for more pay and equal hours, how they could get replaced so easily, and how the labor union fought to change that. In the more recent chapters, he mentions how the union would go on strike and fight to be able to have more pay and to have more consistent hours. But The Jungle also fictionalizes the Labor Union because he made it seem as if they kept on fighting for better working conditions because they were the worst place to be and the worst conditions that anyone would ever be in.

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However, readers at the time were not very concerned about the petty immigrants living on the lower rung of society. Rather, they cared about what affected them most: the condition of the meat they were eating-- and had been eating-- for years, that were produced by some of the very factories mentioned in Sinclair’s novel. For the majority of The Jungle’s readers, the fact that poor immigrants were being exploited was not bothersome. Instead, the fact that the food that readers had been eating for years contained the power to kill them seemed shocking, pushing the nation into a worried frenzy. Readers were disgusted by the facts they were reading, catalyzing the creation of administrations like the FDA.

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The 1906 novel The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair rendered the sickening work condition of immigrants in the industrialized city of Chicago. The early twentieth century was the time when Europeans were migrating to the United States many of the immigrants lived in an overcrowded urban area, and immigrants worked for low and unfair wages for American factories and businesses. At the time the city of Chicago had one of the worst poor living conditions in the United States. The Lithuanians faced the American businesses who ruthlessly manipulated them, experiencing the horrendous working conditions, and the harsh exploitation of the labor of women, men and children. Immigration.

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The Muckrakers, were investigative journalist who succeeded to exposed the social ills of citizens and corruption of both corporation and politics, and they had a huge impact on the success of the Progressive movement. Without the muckrakers the progressive movement would have not achieved the well-known status they had. These crusading journalists exposed bribery and corruption at city and state level, as well as in Congress. They called attention to the exploitation of child labor, the revulsion truth of lynching, and the cruel business practices employed by capitalists. The muckraker’s journalism resulted in legislations and reforms that had long-lasting effects.

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Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tension in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries through his novel “The Jungle”. He used the story of a Lithuanian immigrant, Jurgis Rudkus, to show the harsh situation that immigrants had to face in the United States, the unsanitary and unsafe working conditions in the meatpacking plants, as well as the tension between the capitalism and socialism in the United States during the early 1900s. In the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, there were massive immigrants move into the United States, and most of them were from Europe. The protagonist, Jurgis Rudkus, like many other immigrants, have the “America Dream” which they believe America is heaven to them, where they can

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In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair presents a wide range of corruption involving, blacklisting, political scams, and the mishandling of meat. During the early 20th century, immigrants in America were exposed to many forms of corruption. The Jungle is based in Packingtown, Chicago, a very crowded city. Here, lived an excess amount of very poor immigrants. As they were immigrants, they often did not realize they were taken advantage of until it was too late--if ever.

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People should be able to get paid the right amount on their harsh working conditions, despite their race, culture, ethnicity, gender, and or religion. For example, in The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, he addressed the harsh working conditions through his depiction of the workplace and low wages. The first example of how people worked very hard under harsh conditions and got paid based on what they were, because when Ona got taken advantage of by her boss since she was a woman she was an easy target and she also got paid less so she was in desperate need of money and work. She was forced to do whatever he wanted her to do.

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The 19th century was the era of the Gilded Age, where the economy was booming, bringing great changes that affected the lives of workers and entrepreneurs. During this period, there was a large influx of immigrants that were coming to America to look for job opportunities. The migration of immigrants proved useful as a source for cheap labor, allowing an even higher rise in the U.S. economy. While American industrialization may have benefited the upper class of the American society, the effects were opposite to the workers of the lower classes. This problem was especially worse for immigrant workers as their belief in the so-called American dream has been worn down due to the misery they had to endure.

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His novel The Jungle serves as a credible account of the harsh reality of migrant workers during the Gilded Age, just before the turn of the nineteenth century. The plight of foreign-born workers during this era

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During the time period of the 1900’s, the meat packaging industry in Chicago, as Sinclair mentions in his novel, The Jungle, was a very unsanitary and extremely dangerous workplace that lacked much more than just a few safety precautions. Simple things, such as enforcing hand washing or workers’ rights were unheard of in the working environment. It is clear that Upton Sinclair was trying to expose the worker’s horrendous labor conditions in order to improve their situation, along with the introduction of socialism. Upton Sinclair, in his novel, talks about how a Lithuanian immigrant by the name of Jurgis Rudkus, and his family, travel to Chicago trying to make ends meet. However, they soon realize Chicago was not the place for that.

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