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Who Is The Meatpacking Industry Exposed In The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

1147 Words5 Pages

Low wages, long hours, and no concern for the public mean more money in anyone’s pocket. The early 1900’s was a story of mistreatment in meatpacking companies all across Chicago. The secrets held by means of the owners of these companies were outrageous and deadly. Until a hero of sorts had the guts to spill all the dark secrets held inside the walls of all those companies, the consumers knew what they were eating. Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle, brought to light all the wrongdoings of the meatpacking industry’s secrets and lies. The details in the novel revealed all that the industry had hidden from the general public. Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle in order to exploit the cruelty with reference to factory workers and open the door …show more content…

had a firsthand knowledge on the struggle in the work industry and how often workers were abused by the employers. Born in a Baltimore row house on North Charles Street on September 20th, 1878, young Sinclair experienced how the lower social class lived. With an alcoholic father who moved his family to New York City while Sinclair was still a young child, did not sway Sinclair from his path to socialism. Having wealthy maternal grandparents and then losing the family fortune that they had acquired from generations all the way up until the Civil War, persuaded more to his socialism outcome. Sinclair had developed his love for reading and rebellious attitude toward police society in Baltimore. In spite of the fact that after moving from Baltimore, his education continued in New York’s east side. Later attending City College of New York to further his education and ending in Columbia University. His writing only progressed as the years went by; he wrote some fiction works, ethnic jokes and dime novels to pay for all his education. He had two main influences growing up and in his adult life, William Shakespeare and poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley’s work inspired perseverance for a social reform that remained with Sinclair all his life. When Sinclair found his place with the Socialist group after finishing school, everything after that was vital to his encounter with the meat packing …show more content…

Sinclair recruited his friend Jack London, also a fellow writer, to help him market his novel and get out to the public faster. He needed help getting his message across to all the masses. It was received by great shock from the public. With Sinclair’s illustrative words, he changed the way Americans shopped for their food and the way they ate. Upton Sinclair was critiqued across the board, from the President of the United States to the daily meat consumer. The President called Sinclair a “muckraker” because of his exposure towards the meatpacking business. It is still uncertain if whether the name a “muckraker” is a compliment or an insult, due to Sinclair being labeled that. Although President Roosevelt did not completely agree with what Sinclair did, he still invited him to the White House to ask Sinclair’s advice on how to improve inspections and make them safer. After his visit to the White House, Sinclair credited with the upbringing of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act, both introduced in 1906. The outcry of the people changed the way the meatpacking industry had to change their entire work

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Sinclair worked undercover in a meatpacking plant to gather information firsthand, before he began writing the book. Its influence on the labor practices and regulations governing the food industry cannot be understated. It tackles subjects as varied as the poor living conditions of the immigrants, exploitation of cheap labor by industrialists, and the unsanitary conditions of the meatpacking plants and stockyards of Chicago. The descriptions of the disgusting processes that were conducted in the meatpacking plants made for shocking reading and turned the book into a bestseller. The President Teddy Roosevelt ordered an investigation into the lack of sanitation in meatpacking plants and caused the creation of legislation governing the food industry in the form of the Food and Drugs Act of 1906.

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How did Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” Impact the Meat Factories during the Progressive Age? During the late 1800s and early 1900s a new stage in the United States began, called the Progressive Era. Over the years, America developed into an industrial working country although, like every country the social and economical problems were becoming an issue. Those who were on top were corrupted and vile while those who did the majority of the work took long hours and low pay.

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The Meatpacking Industry was one of the most prominent and powerful industries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was responsible for processing and distributing large amounts of meat to consumers across the United States. The industry was plagued with numerous problems, including poor working conditions, exploitation of workers, and unsanitary practices. In 1906, Upton Sinclair published his novel, "The Jungle," which exposed the brutal realities of the meatpacking industry.

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After the public saw through Sinclair, how atrocious these slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants were, most started avoiding meat altogether. The public then proceeded to bombard the white house with an overwhelming amount of letters and phone calls, urging the government to put an end to what was happening in the industry, which prompted Roosevelt to read Sinclair’s book. After Roosevelt read the book, he appointed a commission to investigate the Chicago slaughterhouses. When the commission came back to Roosevelt to report their findings, they confirmed everything Sinclair had previously written about. By letter, Roosevelt urged congress to pass laws that would allow inspection from “hoof to can.”

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The book provided more distressing news of terrible practices in this industry taught to the workers so that more meat can be distributed for profit. “He wrote that workers would process dead, injured, and diseased animals after regular hours when no meat inspectors were around” (Constitutional Rights Foundation). The industry provides more meat for their customers purely for profit. This causes the industry to be influenced to sell its meat, no matter the condition it is in. The disgusting context of the conditions America’s meat was put through was brought to light, thanks to “The Jungle” and the customers of these businesses were

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The Jungle exposed the way workers were treated in the meatpacking industry. It stated that they were exposed to filthy workplaces, in which the smell would be outrageous. They were forced to work through these smells for non-stop hours. In addition, the smell would come from the meat itself. The smell would bring in rodents, such as rats, into the factories.

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Thus, Sinclair’s purpose of writing The Jungle failed to bring readers to advocate for the rights of workers trapped in the low wages, unsafe working conditions, and long hours of meatpacking factories, but rather, succeeded in opening the country’s eyes to the meatpacking practices that went on behind closed doors and the establishment administrations to protect the public from these unscrupulous

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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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The Out of Many textbook discusses the history of America. A huge part of the history in America is industrialization. Chapter 19 of the textbook talks about the industrial city in which The Jungle by Upton Sinclair opens the realities factory life and work in the early 1900’s. The Jungle tells about the lives of the workers in factories, specifically meat, and how harsh and disgusting their work really was. The topic of industrial cities and their living and working conditions from the Out of Many textbook is weaved in The Jungle .

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