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Poverty And Labor In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

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The Jungle is a widely known book created by Upton Sinclair. Its mainly about a man by the name of Jurgis Rudkus and his family immigrating from Lithuania to Chicago for a better life in the Americas. The family finds a employment in a meat-packing factory. The family quickly realizes their dream becomes into a nightmare and it is not what they hoped for. The dream land is now a land of poverty and labor for the family. All the workers are paid poorly low, overworked, and are involved in dangerous labor conditions. Sinclair’s main goal of the book was for the rights of working people of America, mainly immigrants, focusing on the Chicago meat industry, the horrible conditions, the terrible injuries suffered by the workers. Most of the
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216 Words | 1 Pages

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.

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1199 Words | 5 Pages

After reading Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, child labor, urbanization, industrialization and immigration are problem quite sore during 1880-1910 period. Firstly, the future of the world depends on the child. However, the lives of children today are causing people to worry about. According to the Labor Law, provisions on workers be aged 16 years or older, able to work, working under labor contracts, paid and subject to the management and administration of the employer.

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616 Words | 3 Pages

“The same endless vista of ugly and dirty little wooden buildings. Here and there would be a bridge crossing a filthy creek.” This was Upton Sinclair’s description of the city of Chicago in the early 20th century in his book The Jungle, and it was not flattering. The things that went on inside the city was even uglier, and it was done by one corporate, capitalism. Capitalism became a major problem in America as it bred horrible working and living conditions for the working class, and there was many reasons for why this happened (i.e. greed).

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601 Words | 3 Pages

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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1374 Words | 6 Pages

“Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time” (Grace Abbott). The issue of child labor has been around for centuries. Its standing in our world has been irrevocably stained in our history and unfortunately, our present. Many great minds have assessed this horrific issue and its effect on our homes, societies, and ultimately, our world.

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1060 Words | 5 Pages

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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632 Words | 3 Pages

The Jungle Paper The Jungle is a novel written by Upton Sinclair. It is about a Lithuanian family that immigrates to America during the early 1900’s. When they arrive in Packingtown, Chicago, they are hopeful and excited for their new life. In reality, life in America was not all that it was advertised to be.

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1899 Words | 8 Pages

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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640 Words | 3 Pages

Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle depicted many disturbing social injustices immigrants had to endure at the time during the 19th century. Jurgis and his family moved to America in search of a better life, but upon arrival the harsh reality set in that America was not what everyone said it to be. They suffered many hardships. The working conditions, when they could find employment, were terrible. They battled discrimination, they were grossly taken advantage of, and survival from day to day in Packingtown slowly worked to deteriorate their faith.

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634 Words | 3 Pages

The Bosses squeezed and drained the life of those men. In the book The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair he described the life of a struggling family try to work and stay alive in the filth. The working conditions in the factories were unsafe, unsanitary and people made little. The purpose of this book was for people to become socialist other than capitalist.

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653 Words | 3 Pages

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair gave great insight into many issues that were evolving in America during the Progressive era. It is based around telling the story of an immigrant family who comes to America for a better life. They soon realized the American dream wasn’t what it seemed. Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose the appalling working conditions in the meatpacking industry, and the poverty in America. He aimed at the public's heart and by accident hit it in the stomach.

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709 Words | 3 Pages

“The Jungle” is a novel written by Upton Sinclair on a Lithuanian family that comes to America to achieve the American Dream. The family goes through many trials as poor immigrants, struggling to get wealth, happiness, and opportunities to succeed in America. Sinclair talks about socialism and its benefits. He also exposes the corruption of capitalism and the political system in America. An initial reading of “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair might appear to be literary fiction, further analysis suggest that it is primarily a work of propaganda.

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2149 Words | 9 Pages

A Time for Struggle and Change Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, depicts the struggles of Lithuanian immigrants as they worked and lived in Chicago’s Packingtown at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The United States experienced an enormous social and political transformation; furthermore, the economy, factories, and transportation industry grew faster than anyone had ever seen. Immigrants and migrants were attracted to city life for its promise of employment and their chance at the American Dream. The poor working class had little to no rights, and they grappled with unfair business practices, unsafe working conditions, racism, Social Darwinism, class segregation, xenophobia, political corruption, strikes, starvation, poor housing,

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782 Words | 4 Pages

At the turn of the 20th century, many immigrants were moving to the United States with the hopes of living the “American Dream.” However, that glittering American lifestyle is merely a distant ideal for the immigrants living in Packingtown. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle portrays life through the eyes of a poor workingman struggling to survive in this cruel environment, where the desire for profit among the capitalist meatpacking bosses and the criminals makes the lives of the working class a nearly unendurable struggle for survival. Throughout The Jungle, Sinclair unveils how the lower class is trapped by the very nature of capitalism.

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581 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair points out the harsh reality of what the American Dream is consist of. The American Dream was not an ideal way of life for immigrants because the opportunities for advancement were not the same for individuals. The characters in the novel depict various communal crises that are encounter. Ona Lukoszaite experiences as a wife and employee lead into the issue of oppressed women and women in the workforce. The oppression of women started from a patriarchal system.

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