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Federal meat inspection act 1906
Essay meat industry
Slaughterhouse industry
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When people purchase their meat, they seldom think about the diseases that may come with it. They are confident the meat they are buying is the highest quality their money can afford. However, now and then, there is news of contaminated meat and recalls. This questions the role of the government and its obligation to inform and to serve the public. In the past, the government has passed rules and laws such as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and Kevin’s Law. However, they have proved to be insufficient and required a long process to pass such regulations. To a certain extent, government should further impose actions to ensure the safety of the American public.
Policies that the government has previously passed are rather lenient. The policies allow companies to take advantage of the loop-hole that has been provided for them. Under federal law, employers are not required to verify that a worker's identification documents are authentic (Source 6). This allows the employment of numerous illegal workers who are willing to work long hours for little pay. The greed of the meat industries increase as there are abundant supplies of hardworking low waged-workers that can be replaced when necessary. Companies such as IBP are fond of illegal immigrants because they can be pushed to work in dangerously fast paces due to the fear of replacement and the deportation by the INS. However, what these people do not know is that the meat industries and the INS have been conspiring with one another. The INS allows the meat-packing firms to hire replacement workers before it steps in and removes illegal employees in exchange for bribes (Hedgers). Rule and regulations should be strictly enforced to ensure that there are no ambiguities.
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Works Cited
Eshoo, Anna. "Eshoo Introduces Kevin's Law." Congreswoman Anna G. Eshoo. N.p., 30 Jun 2005. Web. 30 Mar 2011.
Hedgers, Stephen J. "The New Jungle." U.S. News & World Report 23 Sept. 1996: 34+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 27 Feb. 2011.
Kowalcyk, Barbara. "Kevin's Story." The Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention. cfi, n.d. Web. 30 Mar 2011.
Moss, Michael. "The Burger That Shattered Her Life."New York Times 03 Oct 2009: n. pag. Web. 30 Mar 2011
Pasour, E.c. Jr. "We can Do Better than Governement Inspection of Meat." Freeman Ideas on Liberty48.5 (1998): n. pag. Web. 30 Mar 2011.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York: Houghton Mifflin company, 2002. Print.
Sinclair, Upton. "The Jungle: Chapter 9." Berkely Digital Library SunSite. Project Gutenberg, 16 Sept 1996. Web. 30 Mar 2011.
The difficult living situations for many people in the early 20th century were discussed in the novel The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair. The book describes an immigrant family’s struggle to survive after moving to America. The family experiences unsafe working conditions, dangerous child labor and poverty. Sinclair uses these images to shed light on some of America’s troubles, to disparage capitalism and to promote socialism.
The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, emphasizes the importance in changing to become a thriving society through socialism. Sinclair writes his novel to show the corruption that occurs as a result of capitalism. Jurgis’ family is in search for a better life in America where he believes he will make enough pay to support his family. The novel shows that poverty is in control over the working class, but the working class still has a desperation for money. In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair pushes for Socialism by showing Jurgis’ struggle to find work, the hardships of the packingtown workers, and the inequality of all men in this capitalistic society.
Sinclair’s The Jungle, is his fictionalized report of Chicago's Packingtown. It traces a family of Lithuanian immigrants in Chicago, and describes the horrifying living and working conditions they endure. Through Jurgis, the protagonist, and his family, Sinclair unfolds the tragedy of suffering of all Packinghouse workers in their pursuit of the American Dream. He gives a detailed description about their ordeals, from their lodging at boardinghouses to their buying of cheated house,...
DeFalco, Amelia. "Jungle creatures and dancing apes: modern primitivism and Nella Larsen's Quicksand." Mosaic [Winnipeg] 38.2 (2005): 19+. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.
“I aimed for the public’s heart, and by accident I hit them in the stomach” (Sinclair). Upton Sinclair uses these words to describe the reaction his novel, The Jungle, receives upon first publication. Sinclair’s original purpose of The Jungle intends to illustrate the difficult challenges of immigrants in Chicago at the turn of the century; giving details and samples of abuses in the Chicago meatpacking industry to highlight their troubles. Instead, the public demands government intervention against the atrocities and this public outcry leads to the 1906 Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Elements of Naturalism exist throughout most of the text. Naturalism attempts to apply scientific ideals and division when studying the human race. In Upton Sinclair’s brutally descriptive novel, The Jungle, the literary elements of character, setting, and theme show three areas where the book illustrates naturalistic fictional trends.
“The Jungle” novel was written by an American journalist/ novelist name Upton Sinclair in 1906. “The Jungle” made a big hit and became his best-selling novel because it revealed so well about the economical and social reality during that time. The book mainly described about how unsanitary the meat packing industry was operated in Chicago and the miserable life of the immigrants going along with the industry. Through the story around the life and family of Jurgis Rudjus, a Lithuanian immigrant who comes to America with the belief to change their life and live in a better condition, Sinclair expresses that “The Jungle” is a symbol of capitalism. Sinclair’s contempt for capitalist society is present throughout the novel, demonstrated in the eagerness of Jurgis to work, the constant struggle for survival of the workers in Packing town and the corruption of the man at all levels of the society. Also, the author promotes socialism as a standard political society to replace capitalism.
The book, The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair, has portrayed how conditions and social norms of the early 1900’s helped shape society through social reform. Sexism, racism, and class, shaped the experiences and choices of the immigrants in The Jungle throughout the book. The huge difference between the classes was the most significant of the three. Sinclair used the story of one immigrant and his family to help show what was going on in society at that time, to raise awareness, and to promote socialism.
Most of us do not think twice about the foods we pick up from the supermarket. Many Americans have a preconceived belief that the food being sold to us is safe, and withholds the highest standard of quality. Certainly, compared to many places in the world, this is true. But is the United States sincerely trying to carry out these standards, or have we begun to see a reverse in the health and safety of our food- and more explicitly in our meat? Jonathan Foer, author of “Eating Animals” argues for reform within the food industry- not only for the humane treatment of animals but moreover for our own health. Although Foer exposes the ills within the food industries in order to persuade readers to change their diets for the better, his “vegetarianism or die” assessment may be too extreme for most Americans. The true ills do not start with the meat, but with industrialized production of it through methods practiced by factory farming.
From the very beginning, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle enthralls the reader with an anticipation that makes one want to continue reading. Upon further research of the author, it is clear he is a passionate writer at heart; though not always successful. The novel is best known for exposing the highly unsanitary conditions of the meat packing industry, run by corrupt political machines, as well as the severity and harshness faced by immigrants during this time. However, Sinclair’s true goal was to promote his new-found socialist principles amidst the growing businesses and harsh labor conditions existing to the lower class.
Upton Sinclair penned The Jungle in 1905. It is the story of Jurgis Rudkus from Lithuania (62), who along with his family, came to America seeking prosperity (64). Along this journey they will encounter every conceivable hardship. They end up arriving in the stockyards of Chicago, a place termed “Packingtown” (70). Yet even though Sinclair uses the “metaphor, ‘jungle’ (denoting) the ferocity of dog-eat-dog competition, the barbarity of exploitative work, wilderness of urban life” (Phelps 1).The title The Jungle was not an effective title for this quintessential piece. The stockyards were only vaguely reminiscent of a jungle.
Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle is a political statement piece that was written to show the conditions of immigrants workers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Sinclair, through weeks of extensive research, gathered enough information to form a story based on the evidence he had gathered. Although The Jungle is a work of fiction, Sinclair’s novel is still said to be a primary source due the the fact that it was based on research he was doing personally, it was written near the time it was set, and it contains many historical accuracies.
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 conclusion it is obvious to see that rights and responsibilities were not carried out by the meatpacking industry. They were greed driven business men who “poisoned for profit” as president Roosevelt said. The meatpackers had a right to make their product but did not take the responsibility to do it in a manner that was safe to the consumer. Thanks to people like Upton Sinclair and Theodore Roosevelt, the meat industry today takes the responsibility to make a safe quality product of the public.
Schlosser talks about how meatpacking is the most dangerous job in the United States. He says “The injury rate in a slaughterhouse is about three times higher than the rate of a typical American Factory” (172). Every year more than forty thousand meat packing workers get injured (beyond first aid) in the US alone. That is a lot of people getting hurt for just doing their jobs. Some of the injuries that get reported are fatal, but “thousands of additional injuries and illnesses most likely go unrecorded” (172). The workers who apply for such jobs tend to be illegal immigrants who try to earn some money to send back home to their families. Because these immigrants do not “exist”, there would be no problem if one might get into an accident and die.
Krakauer, Jon. Into the wild. New York: Anchor Books , a division of Random House Inc.,, 1997. Print.