Pros And Cons Of 1906 Meatpacking

Response 2 In the 1906 meatpacking controversy the reflection of Americans as consumers drove reform in a very large way. During the late 1800s and early 1900s Americans were becoming more informed consumers, and started to take an interest in the quality of the products they were getting. Meat at the time, like it is today was bought regularly by nearly every consumer. This was a very recent phenomenon as meat had only been available on such a large scale since the end of the Civil War. As such, the industry was still fairly new, and did not have many regulations that governed it. Because of this unscrupulous practices were common in the industry. However, when consumers heard about some of these practices they were outraged. People thought of meat as an essential product, and they recognized the dangers of eating unsafe meat.

In the end, the book raised support for socialism, but it did help raise consumer awareness. While the book was non-fiction it was very representative of traditional mudracking journalism. The novel falls into this category for a couple of different reasons. First, it highlighted the unscrupulous practices of the meatpacking industry. Second, it revealed information unknown to most of the general public that they did know about the industry. Lastly, the novel (rightly so) portraited the industry in an extremely negative light. Because the novel highlights unscrupulous practices, reveals previously unknow facts, and portrays the industry in a negative way it falls directly in the category of traditional mudracking even though it was a non-fiction