In chapter 14 Eric and Walt make it to the York Factory so there journey is complete. The significance of the chapter is the pineapple they saved for the day they completed the trip. He says the pineapple might have been there lucky charm. Jock Thrid and Walt Gordon gave them a place to warm up and eat, which they are lucky for otherwise they were starting to become malnourished. Then Jock told them about the rapid ahead so they at least knew they were coming up, but it would have been nice to have the correct side to go on.
Andrew Carnegie Flame spewing from the mighty Bessemer converters at Pittsburgh as molten iron was changed into steel. That steel would carry on to create our railroads that went out into the great wild west and built our skyscrapers in our cities high in the sky. Such as the iconic Flatiron building. This Steel came from great huge egg shaped furnaces that glowed red hot from all the molten steel that they contained in there vastness. These Furnaces were called Bessemer’s.
The Jungle was written by Upton Sinclair and published in 1906. I chose this book because it’s been mentioned in multiple History classes I’ve taken. I took it upon interest mainly because it is about the brutal and unfair treatment of immigrants in labor and because it exposed the meat industry. (it exposed both). Sinclair strives to expose the danger in capitalism by vividly describing and exposing the ranging and brutal treatment of immigrant laborers who searched to live the American dream but found misfortune instead.
Leo W. Gerard writes the critical column “Murdering American Manufacturing/‘Strictly Business’” in an attempt to foreshadow the imminent doom of American manufacturing due to corporations leaving for Mexico. In the column, Gerard compares the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in an analogy to “labor abuses, not improvements”, so that the Trans-Pacific Partnership receives an understood omen of failure. In an urgent manner, the columnist bashes the TPP proposal; however he loses the reader from misplacing the main idea near the end of the column. Emitting pathos, Gerard’s tone is the equivalent to a fervent plea directed at individuals who have fallen victim to the exodus of American companies. Beginning his column, Gerard is cautious about his word choice.
Workers with tuberculosis coughed constantly and spit blood on the floor. Right next to where the meat was processed, workers used primitive toilets with no soap and water to clean their hands. In some areas, no toilets existed, and workers had to urinate in a corner. Lunchrooms were rare, and workers ate where they worked” (“Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle”)
The market revolution sparked explosive economic growth and new personal wealth. It affected the lives of workers by giving them jobs. It did bring them from skilled labor to cheap labor though. There were far more immigrants in the North than in the South because there were more job opportunities due to there being decreased numbers of enslaved persons. The market revolution sparked social change in many ways.
These workers would produce meat products that were contaminated, processed, and rotten. They would sell products that had chemicals on them but then label the package differently so the public would not know. Sinclair shows how the workers would still process the dead and diseased animals once the inspectors left the factories. “There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms” (161).
On the beginning of the XX century, the meatpacking industry was unregulated and incredibly dangerous. Simple habits, such as washing the hands and the use of hairnets were unknown. This, together with other unhealthy practices, contaminated the resultant meat with dirt, human hair and sweat. However, this was not the only issue concerning that industry. In the end, the meat appropriate for intake would be mixed with ruined meat and chemicals, as the author illustrates, “There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage; there would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected, and that was mouldy and white—it would be dosed with borax and glycerine, and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for home consumption” (Sinclair
The passage explains how the meat productions were handling their meat at very low sanitation levels (Doc.D). These meat companies were letting rats
In order to get rid of the rats they used rat poison and when they would get the meat there was dead rats in there as well their poison and they would drag the meat on the ground
I chose to write about factory farming because I’m with familiar with it. Growing up on a 500-acre farm has given me the chance to scrutinize the importance that they are to our community. Throughout my childhood there was always fresh meat and vegetables on the table. When other families were worrying about the recent recall on the type of meat they had just purchased or the chemicals being sprayed onto their fruits and vegetable, I was left wondering why these other families just didn’t do as we did. Having your own family farm not only saves money that you would spend in the grocery store, but also allows for your family to bond over something that’s not on TV.
The subject of sweatshop and child labor is one of great controversy. The first thought to mind when speaking of sweatshops is probably a vision of sketchy factories in far off Third World countries such as Bangladesh or China working their employees 15+ hours a day in cramped up in a dust-filled space for little wages. Not in America though, right? Most Americans would be horribly upset if they found out they had been unknowingly supporting a business that uses sweatshops to produce its merchandise. Odds are though, businesses that exploit such labor are being supported in every shopping trip a person takes whether it be shopping for groceries, clothes, jewelry, or athletic gear.
