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Upton Sinclair and the Chicago Meat-packing Industry
In 1900, there were over 1.6 million people living in Chicago, the country's second largest city. Of those 1.6 million, nearly 30% were immigrants. Most immigrants came to the United States with little or no money at all, in hope of making a better life for themselves. A city like Chicago offered these people jobs that required no skill. However, the working and living conditions were hazardous and the pay was barely enough to survive on. This is the bases for Upton Sinclair's book, The Jungle.
Sinclair agreed to "investigate working conditions in Chicago's meatpacking plants," for the Socialist journal, Appeal to Reason, in 1904. The Jungle, published in 1906, is Sinclair's most popular and influential work. It is also his first of many "muckraker" pieces. In order to improve society, muckrakers wanted to expose any injustice on human rights or well-being. Therefore, it was Sinclair's goal to expose the harsh treatment of factory workers through The Jungle. The improvement on society, that he hoped would follow, was the reformation of labor.
After seven weeks in Chicago, Sinclair was ready to start writing. He channeled the information that he gathered and represented it through the experiences of a fictitious family of Lithuanian immigrants. This family comes to America with the hope of prosperity and because "rich and poor, a man was free, it was said." However, when they arrive in Chicago, they discover that they must sell themselves into "wage slavery" just to survive. The term "wage slavery" was used because the poor treatment of the migrant workers was similar to that of blacks in the South, prior to the Civil War. Also, note that "wage slaves ...
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...abor reform through his book The Jungle, Upton Sinclair was able to show the world "how the system of graft and patronage functions, how the bosses, the politicians, the contractors, the criminals, the magistrates, and the police work hand in glove." He was also able to open the eyes of consumers and contribute to the passing of the Pure Food and Drug Act, which proves this to be such an important piece of American literature.
Bibliography
Bloodworth, William A., Upton Sinclair. Boston: Twayne Publishers/G.K. Hall &
Co., 1977.
Bloom Harold, ed., Modern Critical Interpretations The Jungle. Philadelphia: Chelsea
House Publishers, 2002.
Henretta, James et al, America's History, Volume Two, Since 1865. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martins, 2004.
Sinclair, Upton, The Jungle. With an introduction by Jane Jacobs. New York: Modern
Library, 2002.
The working conditions in The Jungle describe in deep descriptive detail what was happening in America and was pioneering a new path for change. ”Popular journalism rose to prominence and helped build rising sympathy for reform” (Henretta, Edwards, Self Pg. 595). This novel played an important role in journalism written by Upton Sinclair in opening the eyes of our government’s law makers. At the time these working conditions were being allowed by government because at this time the nation was growing and government supported big business. This is not only immoral because a government convened by the people for the people should never forget the reason the government exists to make a better place for its citizenry to break free from Tierney not to be oppressed by big business or corporations, the United States government represents the people not its own interests this is why this is inconceivable because this democratic government is in place today for its people not big business or corporations. The U.S. government was put in place to do the will of the people.
The novel follows a family of immigrants from Lithuania working in a meatpacking factory, and as the novel progresses, the reader learns of the revolting conditions within the factories. Sinclair’s The Jungle illustrates the concept of Bitzer’s “Rhetorical Situation” and Emerson’s quote quite effectively. For instance, the horrendous safety and health conditions of the packing factories were the exigencies that Upton Sinclair was making clear to the reader. The rhetorical audience that Sinclair aimed to influence with his novel was Congress and the president, as both had to agree in order to establish health and safety bills to better the conditions within factories. Sinclair’s efforts did not go unnoticed as in 1906 both the Meat Inspection Act, and the Pure Food and Drug act were approved by both Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt (Cherny,
While The Jungle was by far Sinclair’s most famous work, what many are not aware of is the fact that The Jungle was initially written as an expose for a well-known socialist newspaper in the country, Appeal to Reason. Although Sinclair once said he were to write the “Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the labor movement”, he did so not by merely speculating what the meat packing industry was like, but by actually experiencing the lifestyle firsthand. Upton Sinclair went to the packing plants himself in order to truly gain the experience of what it was like to work in the stockyards as well as communicating directly with employees, laborers, social workers, and locals to truly grasp what life was like in a place like Packingtown. It was not until Sinclair was able to take all of his experiences in that he was able to sit down and write an accurate and to some, frightful expose of what the meat packing industry
Upton Sinclair’s classic The Jungle analyzes a variety of concerns varying from politics to working conditions in America's capitalist economy. Sinclair highlights key issues for the Progressive Era reform, while he uncovers significant corruption taking place with the country’s rapid industrialization. He was labeled a “muckraker” for exposing the system that privileges the powerful. Upton Sinclair states that the paramount goal for writing his book was to improve worker conditions, increase wages, and put democratic socialism as a major political party. The book shocked the public nation by uncovering the unhealthy standards in the meatpacking industry it also resulted in a congressional investigation.
In 1906, Upton Sinclair's Book The Jungle was published in book form; it had previously been published as a newspaper serial in 1905. Few works of literature have changed history in the United States so much as The Jungle did when it was published. It has been said that the book led to the direct passage of the "Pure Food and Drug Act" of 1906 (Dickstein) and that it lead to a decades long decline in meat consumption is the United States.
Capitalism underwent a severe attack at the hands of Upton Sinclair in this novel. By showing the misery that capitalism brought the immigrants through working conditions, living conditions, social conditions, and the overall impossibility to thrive in this new world, Sinclair opened the door for what he believed was the solution: socialism. With the details of the meatpacking industry, the government investigated and the public cried out in disgust and anger. The novel was responsible for the passage of The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. With the impact that Sinclair must have known this book would have, it is interesting that he also apparently tried to make it fuction as propaganda against capitalism and pro-socialism.
Author Upton Sinclair published the novel The Jungle in 1906. In his novel, Sinclair wrote of a Lithuanian immigrant family who moved to Chicago in the early twentieth century, who was struggling to make ends meet. The author explained how immigrants in this time era experienced difficulties adapting to the new society of America, and its conditions. Sinclair’s novel described how immigrants’ lives, experiences, and choices were effected by social class, racism, and sexism. He produced very strong examples, some more significant than others, which illustrated how immigrants were effected.
Cohesively, the chosen primary sources from the early 1900’s all show the negative connotations that were associated with Upton Sinclair, whether or not the writers manifested through that is a different layer. Today the American people see Upton Sinclair as a muckraker and activist with little attachment to the great knowledge he attained. We attribute Upton Sinclair to one book he wrote, The Jungle, when he wrote numerous books that were widely publicized and talked about during his day. The articles from his time appeared to include his overall literary importance. The single thing that has differed from the way he is viewed now as opposed to how he was portrayed during his time is that we removed the negative assessments of him based on his political and social beliefs. American people currently recognize how beneficial he was to our history.
Most muckraking publications happened in either magazines, such as McClure’s Magazine, or novels, such as The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Sinclair’s novel revealed the horrors of the meat industry, and the poverty of the workers. The book sparked anger and concern regarding the safety of factories, and eventually aided in the creation of the Pure Food and Drug Act, although from a financial standpoint it had little affect at the moment. The book ends with multiple chapters praising socialism and how it is the only fair form of economy due to the extreme poverty of the working class and corruption in politics. To demonstrate the poverty of the people, Sinclair writes things such
From respectable authorities on the subject, and the 1906 Food and Drugs Act itself, gave paticual understanding of the events effecting that time period, a understanding of certain points in the novel “The Jungle”, and how the government went about solving the nation’s going problem, has lead myself to agree that Upton Sinclairs’s
In 1906, socialist Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, a book he hoped would awaken the American people to the deplorable conditions of workers in the meat packing industry. Instead, the book sent the country reeling with its description of filthy, rat infested plants, suspect meats processed and sold to consumers, and corrupt government inspectors. President Roosevelt became seriously concerned by the charges brought forth by Mr. Sinclair and determined the only way to protect consumers from unscrupulous business and unsafe food was to enforce regulation.
“The Jungle,” written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, describes how the life and challenges of immigrants in the United States affected their emotional and physical state, as well as relationships with others. The working class was contrasted to wealthy and powerful individuals who controlled numerous industries and activities in the community. The world was always divided into these two categories of people, those controlling the world and holding the majority of the power, and those being subjected to them. Sinclair succeeded to show this social gap by using the example of the meatpacking industry. He explained the terrible and unsafe working conditions workers in the US were subjected to and the increasing rate of corruption, which created the feeling of hopelessness among the working class.
In Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel, “The Jungle,” he exposes corruption in business and government and its disastrous effects on a family from Lithuania. The novel follows immigrant Jurgis Rudkus as he struggles against the slow ANNIHILATION of his family and is REBORN after discovering that socialism as a cure away to all capitalism’s problems. The Jungle is an example of protest literature because it exposes in a muckraking style the DANGEROUS, INHUMAINE conditions that workers lived and worked in, corruption in business and politics and the unsanitary meat that was sold.
In the early 1900's life for America's new Chicago immigrant workers in the meat packing industry was explored by Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle. Originally published in 1904 as a serial piece in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, Sinclair's novel was initially found too graphic and shocking by publishing firms and therefore was not published in its complete form until 1906. In this paper, I will focus on the challenges faced by a newly immigrated worker and on what I feel Sinclair's purpose was for this novel.
Discuss how Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tensions and historical processes at hand in the late 19th and early 20th centuries