Upton Sinclair: A Brief Biography

Max Toubes

JR 101

Upton Sinclair A pioneer on the forefront of investigative reporting, Upton Sinclair was one of the most prominent novelists of the early twentieth century and a political activist whose famous foray into the meatpacking industry gained him a spot among the most important journalists of all time. Sinclair’s diverse endeavors ranged from his nearly-one-hundred book bibliography to his radical political career. Perhaps one of his most significant long term contributions to the field of journalism was his work in exploiting social misconduct, gaining him the title “muckraker.” The term muckraker was given to forward-thinking, “watch-dog” journalists who wrote for popular publications and often worked to expose social and political

His father was an alcoholic and his family was always on the brink of poverty. Sinclair had been interested in literature and poetry since a very young age. He was known to be well versed in the works of William Shakespeare and for beginning to write as a child. The family moved to New York when Sinclair was ten years old, where his journalism career began at a young age. While Sinclair was attending City College of New York in his early teenage years, his stories were also being published in popular magazines. He graduated just before the turn of the century, and continued his education at Columbia Law School. In 1900, Sinclair was married and had a son a year later. Around this time, Sinclair began to publish his first novels, including the romantic Springtime and

A well known socialist, Sinclair used his royalties from The Jungle to build a utopian, socialist society, known as Helicon Hall, in Englewood, New Jersey. The co-op was burned down and disbanded within a year. However, Sinclair’s success and fame continued to grow with the publication of famous works such as The Metropolis and King Cole. The next decade of Sinclair’s life was riddled with small political achievements such as founding the California Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the End Poverty In California movement during the depression, but was far more successful as a novelist. His novel Oil! from 1927 is one of his best known works of literature. His 1942 novel, Dragon’s Teeth, explored the rise of Adolf Hitler, and won Sinclair the Pulitzer Prize for