Political Interaction In The Jungle And Fast Food Nation

1294 Words3 Pages

The Jungle v. Fast Food Nation
Samantha Goerne
APUSH 6

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser both display different patterns of social and political interaction. The Jungle is an intense, emotional story of the journey of a poor Lithuanian family who moved to Chicago for a chance at a new life. What they didn’t know, however, was the amount of corruption, criminality, and political arrogance that was involved in the setting of their desired life. Fast Food Nation is a nonfiction novel about the factors of the fast food industry that influence all the countries around the world. Comparing these books and the information that they hold can show how disturbing businesses and their practices in the industry …show more content…

One of those instances, which, unfortunately, was very common during this time, was the use of sickly and supposed “diseased” meat so the most profits could continue to be made. The cattle that were meant to be thrown out, were instead continued along the butchering line, being sliced into every possible portion of meat that could be sold. This occurred again with making sausages; everything was included in the sausage, from old sausage that had been rejected, meat that had been dumped on the sawdust-covered floors that workers spit upon, meat that had water from the roofs leaking on it, meat that rats would run on, then the rats were poisoned and used as well (Sinclair, 1906, ch 9). All of this damaged, disgusting meat was injected with chemicals and colorings to make it look like worthy meat. The business owners did everything possible to earn as much money as they could, and to pay their workers as little as they could. Thankfully, the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act were passed in 1906. The Pure Food and Drug Act was put in place to prevent the production and sale of poisonous, untreated, chemically adulterated food and other products, while the Meat Inspection Act made it mandatory for the livestock to be examined before entering the slaughterhouses, and furthermore the carcasses after slicing (Carpenter, 2004). Since the passage of these acts, …show more content…

According to Fast Food Nation, one of the best-paying manufacturing jobs turned into one of the worst-paying manufacturing jobs, had a workforce of mainly immigrant workers, and rarely considered injuries (Schlosser, 2002, ch 7). The injury rate in the business was about three times higher than that in a regular factory, with the rate of trauma overtime in the business about thirty-three percent higher than the average (Schlosser, 2002, ch 8). In order to keep the business running smoothly with no interferences, the companies would have a list of actual accident in the workplaces, then a list that they would turn in to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Ironically, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is mentioned in Fast Food Nation and explains how the accuracy of the story brought attention to the subject by government officials and even the president of the time, Theodore Roosevelt. Eventually, the multiple unions that worked nationwide were able to secure the wages and treatments they knew they

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