ipl-logo

Who Is Upton Sinclair Successful In The Progressive Era?

573 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Upton Sinclair thesis

The Progressive era was a time when reformers wanted to improve American life. Among these reformers were investigative journalists called muckrakers, who sought to expose social problems. In 1906, Upton Sinclair wrote a novel that changed America for the better. Sinclair, a muckraker, wanted to expose the evils of the meatpacking industry, especially with respect to working conditions. Sinclair went undercover into the factories to gain first-hand information on the scandals of the meat industry. His initial goal was to expose the harsh working conditions the workers faced. Even though Upton Sinclair did not achieve the goal of improving working conditions, he was very successful in improving the meat industry for consumers through the passage of the Meat …show more content…

Sinclair exposed the problem of mutilated limbs and other horrors common to the workers. Sinclair also explained how even minor injuries could become fatal and how the labor intense work done at the factories caused workers to experience swollen joints (doc 1). Unfortunately, no laws were passed to protect workers from the awful conditions they faced. Although Sinclair’s attempt at reforming working conditions was fruitless, the public’s reaction to the truth about the meat they were purchasing sparked a nationwide attempt to enact consumer protection laws. The meat packing factories were doctoring their products with chemicals so they could profit from rotten meat. The unsanitary factories were also home to rats, rat poisons, germs, dust, and dirt. The workers put contaminated meat into the meat choppers. Moldy and otherwise inedible meat was doused in chemicals and ground into sausages. When the public found out about these scandals, many were repulsed and demanded immediate government action. The government responded with the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. The Meat Inspection Act allowed, “the Secretary of

Show More
Related
1476 Words | 6 Pages

Innocent Belief Famously known for his novel, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair changed American life in the early 1900s without a doubt through his literature. However, many don’t realize that Sinclair reformed American life in more than one instance, through more than one book. At times, he even reached beyond his realm of literature to discuss other needed adjustments. Besides the serendipitous changes he created for the meat packaging industry, Sinclair’s other actions throughout his life are, subjectively, important to American history, according to Anthony Arthur. In his biography, Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair, Arthur reveals his bias towards Sinclair, while supplying a relevant nature to his writing across an in-depth review of Sinclair’s

Read More
1184 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
301 Words | 2 Pages

Some significant reforms in the 1900s were the homes families and strangers lived in going from slums to nicer living conditions. For example living in an apartment that is meant for 1 maybe 2 adults has 10 to 15 adults living in it with a bathroom down the hall away from the rooms for people in other apartments to use as well, or when someone gets a sickness in the apartment and everyone in the whole building gets it because everything is contaminated from the person being sick. It went from that to a little bit bigger homes with lesser people and cleaner rooms and bathrooms. Upton Sinclairs was an activist because he took part in what he thought was right when it came to meet packaging and how it needs to be reformed and cleaned. And if

Read More
601 Words | 3 Pages

The Jungle was released to expose meatpacking industries’ ways of treating workers and meat. With this release, changes occurred. President Roosevelt urged Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. This act required the Department of Agriculture to inspect every hog and steer whose carcass state lines. In other words, it required companies to pay to get their facilities and practices checked by an inspector to assure everything was being done correctly.

Read More
350 Words | 2 Pages

Corporate greedy and corrupt politicians were specific problems and injustices that were present in American life during the late 1800s and early 1900s however these were addressed during the progressive era with laws and regulations. Throughout the gilded era corrupt politicians and corporate greedy allowed the upper class and businessmen to take advantage of the working class. This means that a majority of the population were hurt during the gilded age whereas a small percentage benefitted. As seen in document 1, living conditions were crowded, dirty, and unsafe.

Read More
654 Words | 3 Pages

Upton Sinclair is a profound author that acquired particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle. Which was written to expose the working conditions of the meatpacking industry. Becoming an “accidental muckraker” after writing the novel gained him credit to the truth of the novel based on the meatpacking industry in Chicago. Another author that portrayed the dark side of the society was Eric Schlosser, who brought light onto slaughterhouses, which were deemed as the most dangerous job. This event described the laboring conditions of what goes on inside of the slaughterhouses are an atrocious depiction of the working conditions of the time.

Read More
1060 Words | 5 Pages

Revealing the harsh treatment of meatpacking workers and showing the reality of the disgusting conditions found in butchery shops to the public, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle became an enduring classic by American readers throughout the early twentieth century the prompted the later creation of the Federal Drug Administration. In the early 1900s, America was explosively transitioning from an agricultural society to a thriving manufacturing-based nation. As production demand in factories grew throughout the country, the work force needed to run those factories also expanded. A new type of demanding and dangerous work became prevalent throughout the nation, as immigrants coming into the “Land of Opportunity” found themselves desperate

Read More
147 Words | 1 Pages

The book mentions and involves the meat packing industry many times. A big part of the story is meant to talk about the horrible conditions about the meatpacking industry but it’s not the whole story. The main character does start to work in the meatpacking industry but it’s not the whole story. The book is about the hardships of a poor immigrant family in Chicago and about every other poor person having hard times in the country. Upton Sinclair is showing the horrendous ways that people had to live in his days, the way people manipulated each other, stole, tricked, ripped off.

Read More
1349 Words | 6 Pages

Working condition of the meatpacking industry in the early 1900s was described in the book The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair. The text revealed the real daily life of the works which was so terrible that Roosevelt sent agents to check whether it was a true depiction. The Neill-Reynolds report came later, confirming what the book said was all true, and the workers were “ in utter ignorance of cleanliness or danger to health” (Doc. B). Roosevelt responded to this by creating the Meat Inspection Act of 1906, which required federal inspection of meat.

Read More
665 Words | 3 Pages

Although it may seem that the meat packing industry is still in turmoil because of their unwillingness to make known what foods have Genetically Modified organisms present, the meat packing industry was much worse during the 1900’s because of the unsafe working conditions, and uncleanliness of the food. Body 1: The meat packing industry’s working conditions were much worse in the 1900’s than they are today. In the novel The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, working conditions were horrible for immigrants who were employed in these factories. People in these factories were worked very hard and used up till they could not work anymore. In the novel Jurgis broke his ankle because of the unsafe

Read More
1184 Words | 5 Pages

Christian Martin November 2, 2015 Upton Sinclair’s Effect on the Progressive Movement Upton Sinclair Jr. was born on September 20, 1878, in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the only child of Upton Sinclair Sr. and Priscilla Sinclair. Throughout his life he was a devout Christian. His home life was hard since his family was in poverty and his father was an alcoholic. He moved to New York with his family at age ten and began attending New York City College at age fourteen.

Read More
1423 Words | 6 Pages

Though best known for his muckraking efforts that helped to end the Gilded Age, Upton Sinclair wrote nearly a hundred books in his lifetime. From a young age his mother encouraged in him a love of reading; when he could, Sinclair could be found reading for up to fourteen hours a day. However, his childhood was marked by poverty and his father's raging alcoholism. His mother took a strong sense of morality against his father’s drinking and of all types of sinning. These strict morals implanted in him made the socialist party very appealing.

Read More
1548 Words | 7 Pages

Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland in a small row house on September 20, 1878. In addition to this, from an early age he was exposed to differences that would have a long lasting effect on his juvenile mind and drastically influence his thinking as time progressed. Moreover, he was the only child to an alcoholic liquor salesman of a father, and a determined mother, he was raised on the premise of poverty, yet was also exposed to the advantages of the upper class through frequent gatherings with his mother’s wealthy family (biography.com). Equally important, is at the age of ten Sinclair’s father uprooted the family from Baltimore to New York City. During this time, Sinclair started to establish a sharp mind and was an insatiable

Read More
1045 Words | 5 Pages

Immigrant workers were limited of their freedom and constantly exploited due to the fact that they were working in hazardous working conditions, were living in deplorable conditions, and were being harassed under the intimidating power of corrupt politicians. Such miseries the immigrants had to face included the hazardous working conditions where they had to stay for long hours. There was no doubt that workers had either die or were injured as they worked in such environment. In Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, the dangers of working conditions are emphasized through Jurgis’ incident at the meatpacking plant.

Read More
853 Words | 4 Pages

Upton Sinclair purposely tries to shock the reader by explaining the corruption in the meat industries in detail. Sinclair says “In these chutes the stream of animals was continuous; it was quite uncanny to watch them, pressing on to their fate, all unsuspicious a very river of death,” (58) later in the book, he also describes the meat industries by saying “there were whole cellars full of it (animals)... In yet other rooms they were putting up meat in boxes and barrels, and wrapping hams and bacon in oiled paper.” (82) The extra description of the meat industries was really unnecessary because it can disgust the reader, but at the same time shock them which is Sinclair’s goal.

Read More

More about Who Is Upton Sinclair Successful In The Progressive Era?

Related Topics

Open Document