Without Upton Sinclair, the last hamburger you ate could have had part of someone’s finger within it, or worse. With a different personal life than we would experience today, his character was formed into one with with a strong passion for social justice. It turned him into what is called a “muckraker,” a journalist who exposes the corruption of a specific industry. The combination of his excellent writing ability and his passion for social justice lead him to become the excellent success we know him as today. Because of his book, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair was the most influential and important person to the changing of the meat-packing industry in the early twentieth century.
Upton Sinclair’s life was quite an interesting one, which helped
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him become the person we now know him as today. Sinclair was born on September 20, 1878, in Baltimore (Cherny). With his family, young Upton experienced several different lifestyles as a kid (Upton). Upton’s father was an alcoholic, and in the boy’s eyes, a failure; in contrast, his mother, who was strong-willed, he followed the example of (Arthur). He lived in cheap apartments at age 10, and because he often visited his wealthy grandparents, he experienced both wealth and poverty, which troubled him and became one of his main themes (Arthur). “An advanced student and gifted writer, at fourteen he entered College of the City of New York (though called a college, it was closer to a high-school) and supported himself by writing routine and often dull novels (called hack or pulp fiction) for popular magazines (Upton).” “Sinclair saw Yohannan ii himself at this time as a poet, embracing Jesus, Hamlet, and Percy Bysshe Shelley (Upton).” After, he studied at Columbia University (Cherny). In Upton’s future personal life he was able to have a family of his own, but still didn’t have an exceptional personal life then either. Sinclair married Meta Fuller in 1900, and his son, David, was born next year (Upton). However, he divorced Meta, and married Mary Craig Kimbrough (Upton). On top of this, he ended up divorcing Mary and married his third wife, Mary Elizabeth Willis (Upton). Upton Sinclair died in his sleep at the age of ninety within a nursing home in New Jersey. As stated before, Upton’s early life was very influential to what he became, and it also helped form some of his writing styles over time. Upton was exposed to the life-styles of both poverty and wealth as he grew up, which became a major theme for him. Because of his dad’s alcoholism, Sinclair clearly has a strong distaste for liquor, which can clearly be seen in several of his books (Upton). Reverend W. W. Moir, a minister, was influential to Upton’s main passion. Their relationship helped Upton develop his passion for moral and social justice (Upton). “Moir served as a father figure for Sinclair. The relationship, mixed with Sinclair’s study of what he considered conflicting messages in official church teaching, resulted in Sinclair’s lifelong following of the moral teaching of Jesus while having little use for organized religion (Upton).” “Sinclair’s primary interest was in social change, and his concern for social and moral improvement dominated his prolific writings (Upton).” Sinclair accomplished a lot in his life, and was very important in healing the corruption of the meatpacking industry. Without Upton Sinclair, the meat-packing industry would have remained corrupt for far longer that it should have been. The food was secretly treated in a very unsanitary manner, and the workers were treated just as terribly. In the factory, they would mix rotting meat with good meat, Yohannan iii send out diseased meat, add rancid butter to it, pretend to sell lambs yet really sell goats, leaves pieces of people’s bodies such as fingers, etc (Lane).
“They used everything about the hog except the squeal (Sinclair).” Each type of work had its dangers. The butchers would often work with bleeding fingers and could get sores and diseases, and those who worked with chemicals would have their skin eaten off by it. Chilling room workers would develop rheumatism, and canning workers would get blood poisoning. Stamping workers could lose a limb, and those who worked with the chemical tanks would occasionally fall into the vat; by the time someone pulled them out, they were nothing but bones (Lane). For all this, the workers would get paid around seventeen cents an hour (Lane). Because of the impact of this book, Sinclair became known as a muckraker (Blackwell). “I aimed at the public’s heart, and accidentally hit it in the stomach (Sinclair).” Upton wrote ninety books in all, and some, besides the Jungle, exposed the corruption of other industries. Oil!, another book he wrote, is another example of one of his works about social issues, focusing on the illegal leasing of oil reserves (Upton). His book, Dragon’s Teeth, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1943 (Upton). Overall, however, Upton Sinclair’s most famous book is, by far, The
Jungle. Despite his humble beginnings, Upton Sinclair was truly a great influence to society. He did many more things with his life, exposing the corruption of other industries, and even running for governor, although unsuccessfully(Upton). However, Sinclair’s greatest impact will always be The Jungle, and he will always be remembered for it. Imagine what you would be eating if Upton Sinclair had never existed.
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,
Upon his 1906 publishing of The Jungle, Sinclair was coined as an avid “muckraker” when President Roosevelt addressed an audience in April of that year. When asked whether or not the novel provided a realistic account of workers conditions within the Chicago meat packing industry, Roosevelt accused Sinclair of being a liar in an attempt to discredit him. A large part of this was credited to Roosevelt’s personal distaste for Sinclair’s apparent link to the Socialist party but, Roosevelt was also unaware that Sinclair had worked undercover at the plant to gather first hand and accurate accounts. The Jungle shined light on the poor working conditions of workers in a meat packing facility. Throughout the novel, Sinclair gave gruesome examples of what workers went through each and every day. Each department of the facility was faced with its own risks and challenges, “There were the wool pluckers, whose hands went to pieces even sooner than the hands of the pickle men; for the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull out this wool with
Upton Sinclair's Purpose in Writing The Jungle Upton Sinclair wrote this book for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, he tries to awaken the reader to the terrible. living conditions of immigrants in the cities around the turn of the century. Chicago has the most potent examples of these. conditions.
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.
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.
The people who read it were so appalled by the disgusting filth, and the actual ingredients of the processed meat. The book provided the final drive for way for the U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act and truth in labeling all passed by President Theodore Roosevelt. Also in the story, Sinclair concerns the readers with the abuse of immigrant workers, both men and women. This is partially why he uses the story of the man moving from Lithuania to America.
Discuss how Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tensions and historical processes at hand in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
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.
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.
During the late 1800's and early 1900's hundreds of thousands of European immigrants migrated to the United States of America. They had aspirations of success, prosperity and their own conception of the American Dream. The majority of the immigrants believed that their lives would completely change for the better and the new world would bring nothing but happiness. Advertisements that appeared in Europe offered a bright future and economic stability to these naive and hopeful people. Jobs with excellent wages and working conditions, prime safety, and other benefits seemed like a chance in a lifetime to these struggling foreigners. Little did these people know that what they would confront would be the complete antithesis of what they dreamed of.
Socialism versus Capitalism in The Jungle by Upton Sinclair Even before the beginning of the twentieth century, the debate between socialists and capitalists has raged. In The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, he portrays capitalism as the cause of all evils in society. Sinclair shows the horrors of capitalism. In The Gospel of Wealth, by Andrew Carnegie, he portrays capitalism as a system of opportunity. However, both Carnegie and Sinclair had something to gain from their writings; both men had an agenda.
At the turn of the twentieth century “Muckraking” had become a very popular practice. This was where “muckrakers” would bring major problems to the publics attention. One of the most powerful pieces done by a muckraker was the book “The Jungle”, by Upton Sinclair. The book was written to show the horrible working and living conditions in the packing towns of Chicago, but what caused a major controversy was the filth that was going into Americas meat. As Sinclair later said in an interview about the book “I aimed at the publics heart and by accident hit them in the stomach.”# The meat packing industry took no responsibility for producing safe and sanitary meat.
After the publication, sales skyrocketed. The public was mortified by the gruesome happenings inside the meat-packing industry. Sinclair was alarmed by the response, however, because he viewed that the public had eyes only for the condition of the meat, and little for the troubles of factory workers. Sinclair said, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." (“Upton Sinclair's The Jungle: Muckraking the Meat-Packing
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.