Upton Sinclair- The Jungle

After hearing about the Muckrakers today in class I was curious to learn more about them. As a whole Muckrakers wrote about, took pictures and used other methods to expose the flaws in American society. Their goals were not only to show the public what was wrong but also to motivate them to stand up and fix the problems. A number of famous Muckrakers are Jacob Riis, Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Frank Norris and Upton Sinclair. Each of these Muckrakers each showed the public what they believed were issues that needed to be fixed in their own unique ways. 

Among the many famous Muckrakers, is Upton Sinclair whose book "The Jungle" told gruesome stories about the meat packing industry in Chicago. He was born in Baltimore in 1878 and came from an old Virginia family.  While attending Columbia University he began to sell stories to magazines. He geared his writings towards working class readers. He graduated from Columbia in 1897, got married 3 years later and had one child. He began to start writing novels but struggled to get them published. While struggling to make it as a writer he began to read about socialism. He began to believe in the idea that the government should take control of big business. Then in 1904, the meat-packer's union in Chicago went on strike. They were demanding better wages and working conditions. The strike however was unsuccessful and was broken up by the companies who simply brought in new workers to replace the ones on strike. After the strike the editor of "Appeal To Reason" suggested to Sinclair to write a novel about the strike. Listening to the editor, at the age of 26, Sinclair went to Chicago to learn about the meat packing industry.

While in Chicago, Sinclair went about interviewing workers, their families, doctors, lawyers and social workers. He himself also witnessed the horrifying conditions inside the meat packing plants.  After observing and interviewing Sinclair began to write a fictionalized account of Chicago's Packing town. This book, titled "The Jungle" is what Sinclair has become most famous for. In his novel he writes about a young man named, Jurgis Rudkins. In his novel Jurgis has recently immigrated to Chicago with some friends and family from Lithuania. Filled with hope for a better life Jurgis takes a job as a "shoveler of guts" at a firm named "Durham", which was based on the firm Armour and Co, the leading meat packer at the time. Not too long after starting at this job Jurgis discovered that he as his fellow workers were getting unfair treatment. The company would speed up the assembly line and get more work out of men for the same pay. He also found that the company was not paying the workers anything for working part of an hour. Not only were the wages and hours unfair Jurgis discovers just how dangerous the job is. He sees those working in the pickling room with skin diseases and sees men who work with knives frequently loose fingers. The working conditions were not sanitary. Sick workers got their saliva all over the meats, there were often no toilets and so workers had to go in the corners, and even if there were toilets there was no soap or water. Workers also did not have a lunch room and were forced to eat where they worked. Jurgis experiences many misfortunes while working in this industry  such as becoming injured while working the assembly line. Sadly for Jurgis and others like him there was no worker's compensation and the employer was not responsible for their injured workers. As a result Jurgis, like many other workers, loses everything inclufing his job, house and family.

Along with the working conditions Sinclair slipped in two chapters about the meat itself. Describing how much of the meat was rotten and diseased. He described how the meats were processed and doctored by chemicals and then mislabeled for sale in the public. He wrote about how workers would process mangles, diseased and dead animals after hours when the inspectors weren't around.

This moving fictional story opened the eyes of the public to the horrors of the meat packing industry. However, to Sinclair's dismay, the public cared more about the bad meat they were getting sold that the rights of those who were being forced to process and package it. After the public uproar, President Roosevelt invited Sinclair to the white house to discuss his book. The president appointed a commission to investigate Chigaco's slaughterhouse which confirmed everything that Sinclair had written about. After this a number of laws were passed with the hopes of improving the food industry. Sinclair's novel, along with those of other famous Muckrakers, were able to get a strong enough message to the public to get reforms to be made and change the future of America and its industries.




http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-24-1-b-upton-sinclairs-the-jungle-muckraking-the-meat-packing-industry.html