In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair explains how horrible working conditions were for people in the meatpacking industry. Have you ever wondered what effect Upton Sinclair had on American industry? The Jungle is about the poor working conditions and the very poor sanitation in 1906. We will also be talking about the backstory behind Upton Sinclair.
Upton Sinclair discovered how bad working areas were. There were repetitive and dangerous assembly lines. People could easily break their backs in any of the jobs. They didn’t even get breaks. People couldn’t advance their careers, and they worked in foul and filthy spaces. They worked ten hours a day, with six days a week.
The corporations and management system was faulty. They didn’t provide worker safety measures. They focused on consolidation, and simply removed competitors. They had
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They would shriek, as they were cut open alive, without anesthetic. They were stabbed onto a hook before being killed. They were frightened. They were chained up and yanked from their feet. They were moved by machinery and carts. Upton Sinclair said that “It was like some horrible crime committed in a dungeon.”
Upton wrote a lot of books. Most of them failed, until he wrote The Jungle. He went to Princeton, but only to access their collection on the Civil War. To support himself, he wrote dime novels. He also sold humor bits to newspapers and magazines. He had an unhappy marriage to Meta Fuller, with one son, David. He almost died of pneumonia. Upton Sinclair was born in 1878, and died in 1968. He condemned education, because it didn’t fit poverty.
The Meat Inspection Act was created because of him in 1906. Animals have to pass a test before and after death to be fed to humans. These animals include cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats. There are now rules for cleanliness in slaughterhouses and processing plants. The Beef Trust act fought against the Meat Inspection Act, but