Industrialization In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

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The Out of Many textbook discusses the history of America. A huge part of the history in America is industrialization. Chapter 19 of the textbook talks about the industrial city in which The Jungle by Upton Sinclair opens the realities factory life and work in the early 1900’s. The Jungle tells about the lives of the workers in factories, specifically meat, and how harsh and disgusting their work really was. The topic of industrial cities and their living and working conditions from the Out of Many textbook is weaved in The Jungle . The Jungle portrays the horrifying struggle of life in highly populated cities and the unsafe factory conditions that came along with the city that chapter 19 of the textbook discusses.

During the time of industrialization, …show more content…

The conditions in which immigrants worked under were not regulated by Labor Unions like they are today. One of the most dangerous working conditions were within the meat packaging industry itself. Unsanitary conditions include one of the men of the Lithuanian family, Jurgis, was first hired into the meat packaging industry. Jurgis’s job involved sweeping up animal carcasses and disposing of them. Not only is that unsanitary in itself, the floor was covered with blood which even made it feel like the workers were wading in it The conditions that Jurgis worked in were very unhealthy, the meat could be rotting on the ground and the blood could cause severe health issues. Workers during this time suffered completely, including Jurgis and his family. The workers had to keep up with how fast a machine could operate, and if they were unable to they could either lose a job or get injured. This fast pace work style also caused workers to sometimes be unsafe when they were working. Death inside factories was a common happening because of this . If people were working hard, long hours and stopped to take a break the worker could possibly fall asleep or lose track of what they were doing. Death happened so often, but families had to move on and keep working harder because they were so poor. A child in the Lithuanian family in The Jungle, Stanislovas, was too young to