Upton Sinclair The Jungle Summary

In the early parts of the 20th century “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair shed some light on the terrifying conditions being held in the meat industry. With the help of Teddy Roosevelt, Strict government laws came into play to regulate the meat packing industry.
The question is how did this all start? Towards the end of the 19th Century a major reform movement approached the United States. This is known as the progressive movement or “Progressive Era.” “Progressivism is the term applied to a variety of responses to the economic and social problems rapid industrialization introduced to America. Progressivism began as a social movement and grew into a political movement.” thousands of new jobs and companies were created in the United States, because

of this many people from other parts of the world migrated to the U.S to find a better life. But that wasn’t so simple, this Era revealed a lot of things that were going on in this country and one of them were how companies “Set high prices and treated workers as "wage slaves".” and other various problems that were being being placed by those exact companies.
During that era working condition in general were horrible, factories weren’t the safest place to work in.

A Lot of machines didn’t have any safety precautions this lead to a lot of injuries and death in factories. Breaks weren’t being given much to the employees and men were being paid about 10 cents per hour or maybe even less for hours worth of work. Women would make almost half of that. Children were paid less than 10 cents an hour as well for fourteen hour days of work since they were doing less complex work that didn’t take much skill. Cording to this article many children had physical deformities because of the lack of exercise and sunlight. Because of the mistreatment of children during that era the labor union was form
According to crf-usa, In the early 1900s, four major meat corporations brought out many small slaughterhouse companies scattered out the United States. The meat- packing companies were focused in a couple of cities, but mainly in Chicago. A part of Chicago called Packing town the industry spread all over stockyards with slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants. All located near housing areas where a lot of the workers

lived.
The meat packers were the first to develop the first industrial assembly line. According to crf-usa It required “80 separate jobs from the killing of an animal to processing its meat for sale.” “Killing gangs” had the jobs like “Knockers,” “rippers,” “leg breakers,” and “gutters.” “The animal carcasses moved continuously on hooks until processed into fresh, smoked, salted, pickled, and canned meats. The organs, bones, fat, and other scraps ended up as lard, soap, and fertilizer. The workers said that the meat-packing companies "used everything but the squeal."”
Many immigrant men that were unskilled did the hard and often dangerous work. According to Leaners “In l890, the Chicago meatpacking industry was the greatest concentration of labor and capital in the world. More than 25,000 men, women, and children worked in this empire” They worked in dark and rooms that had small ventilation. The condition of those rooms were unsanitary, the floors covered with blood, and Scraps of meat. Children and Women over 14 years old worked at meat trimming, and canning. Most of these workers earned pennies per hour and worked around 10 hours a day. Skilled workers such as “pacesetters” earned about 50 cents an hours. Their duty was to speed up assembly lines. “Pacesetters” were very disliked among the workers.
Upton Sinclair, The author of the novel “The Jungle” made his fictional story revolves around Chicago’s Packing Town. It tells us the horrible environment he saw in the meat-packing business. The story is about a man named Jurgis Rudkis, he came to Chicago with his Friends and Family from Lithuania. Just like many other immigrants, they all came seeking a better life. The story tells us that Jurgis got a job at “Durham” as a “shoveler of guts.” It also tells us how he discovers many things like how they cheated workers from their pay and how tactics they use to get more out of workers without paying them more. Jurgis witness men losing fingers, working with skin diseases, workers with tuberculosis and lifting and pulling 100-pounds of meat. Some places didn’t have restrooms or the restrooms where exactly right next to where they worked. They ate where they worked and there were no soap and water for the workers to wash their hands and no facilities for workers to take a break or eat this was all done where they were working.
Upton Sinclair wrote that meat that were meant for anning and sausage were laid out all over the floor. according to Crf-usa “workers carried it off in carts holding sawdust, human spit and urine, rat dung, rat poison, and even dead rats.” Sinclair describes the meat industry appalling concern for the people that were consumed in the vats as “and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting,--sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard!”
Sinclair focused a lot on the meat back then was being made and treated in his book. The people were being served rotten contaminated meat filled with chemicals. The workers would process sick animals when no meat inspectors were present. “He explained how pork fat and beef scraps were canned and labeled as “potted chicken”.” The main Character Jurgis Suffered from injuries working in the industry as well.
In the early parts of the 20th century “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair shed some light on the terrifying conditions being held in the meat industry, But according to Chapter 10 in the book “After The Fact, The art of Historical Detection, Volume 2” Sinclair’s book was the final chapter to the big issue.

“As early as the 1870’s, some European governments had begun to ban what they had found to be unhealthy American meat products.” This cause American export to decrease, son in 1891 The federal meat inspection act was passed in attempt to win back their foreign traders. The Federal Stamp would be placed on the shipments to show “ all meats in interstate and foreign sales had been subjected to a pre slaughter inspection.” This swindle lasted for a couple of years. In 1897 “embalmed meat” scandals had resurfaced about the industries un sanitized practice. Some of these Industries supplied the soldiers out fighting in Cuba. They were fed “rotten and chemically adulterated meats. Around that time Teddy Roosevelt was the commander of the Rough Riders, we witness his troops die from illnesses from the contaminated, rotten

meat.
Roosevelt experience first hand how bad the meat that was being produced were. In 1905 he made his first move. According to the book “He ordered his attorney general to bring suit against the packinghouse under the Sherman Antitrust Act. The ShermanAntitrust Act was one of the first measure passed by congress to prohibit trusts. This helped outlawed monopolistic business practices. But it wasn’t that easy The judge did dismiss the government's suit. So he released confidential reports which “revealing perjury in the Beef Trust case.
Roosevelt noticed that their was something wrong with the Meat inspection Act. Roosevelt help allocate money to inspect these industries. The fonds were very limited so the job was never done properly. According to the book most of the inspectors worked in the day, this left the industries to do whatever they want to do during the night time. Despite the fact that during the inspection, they found a diseased animal, they don’t have the power to have those animals disposed. Some of these industries would even sell these animals to other industries without federal supervision.
The Federal Government didn’t have much power at all against a lot of the companies during that era. According to the book “ The inspectors could only threaten to leave the premises if the packers ignored their ruling.” “ the law did prevent the industry from exporting meat without the federal stamp of approval, no similar provision protected American consumers. Once a carcass passed the inspector, the government had no further power to impose sanitary standards anywhere in the plants.” What if an inspector were to be bribed ? or wasn’t doing their job. The industry would be free to do anything with the stamp. Roosevelt knew that and tried to do something about it.
The meat industry wasn’t the only thing that Roosevelt fought against. Milk Dealer industries sanitary conditions were horrible as well. They would “Regularly increased their profits by diluting their product, using chalk, plaster, plaster, and molasses to fortify the color and taste.” Roosevelt used the ster the book“The Jungle” has created to his advantage. The book had many American outraged. This made made a lot of the industries lose their credibility. Roosevelt started various investigators out to help add on to Sinclair’s uproar. Roosevelt sent an internal investigation of the Bureau of Animal Industry and sent New york attorney James Reynolds and Commissioner of Labor Charles P. Neil for a independent investigation. The Result of the investigation became a succes. Roosevelt sign the bill and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 came into effect.
The book “The Jungle” became an international best-seller. It made a few good positive impacts. The people were informed about what was happening to their food and sales dropped drastically. This helped give Roosevelt the push he needed to help fight against these big industries and strict government laws came into play to regulate the meat packing industry.