Essay on An Analysis of the Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Before Henry Ford adapted the automobile production, they had developed an assembly line. It worked more like a disassembly line because there were 80 separate jobs in one line in the whole process of getting the meat ready. The immigrants did the most dangerous jobs, they worked in cold weather in the winter and the hot dark room in the summer (Willie).”

The working conditions of the new arrivals were hardly any better, as employees of factories were often overworked, underpaid, and penned up in dangerous conditions. Perhaps the horrors of these conditions can be highlighted by the devastating 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. Tragically, over one hundred young women lost their lives in the fire, as there was no way to get out, and the doors were locked, trapping the women inside. Safety was not the only problem, as workers initially were not given the right to organize into unions, essentially doomed to the repetitive motions of factory operation. This meant that they had no way to protest against child labor, wage slavery, and unhealthily long working hours. Eventually, with their growing clout and ever-present industrial dependence on their labor, workers organized and demanded reform along all aspects of hazardous working conditions.

For centuries immigrants have left their homes and have journeyed to the United States in pursuit to live out the “American Dream”, an idea that the U.S. will provide people with a better life. However, this “better life” was not just given upon arrival, immigrants were not told the horrid experiences, and backbreaking hour, they would face in search for a better life. There is no better representation of this than Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, this book is a very accurate representation of the life of the vast majority of people within the United States. During the time when this book was written there were few jobs, and the jobs that were obtainable were mostly factory jobs with horrible conditions that entailed excruciating hours. Aside from the dangerous conditions, the pay was next to nothing making it near impossible to afford food and shelter, let alone providing for a family. Immigrants quickly found out that the “American Dream” was not the glorified vision that they thought, rather more like the song “Welcome to the Jungle” by “Guns N Roses”. After examining the lyrics, you can tell the similarities Axl Rose and the rest of Guns N Roses were facing as they tried to make it in the music industry. “In the jungle, welcome to jungle, watch it bring you to your knees, I wanna watch you bleed,” once you get to the U.S. you’ll get ripped down to almost nothing and suffer from the horrible conditions that you are faced with. The Jungle takes all of the issues immigrants

At the beginnings of the 1900s, some leading magazines in the U.S have already started to exhibit choking reports about unjust monopolistic practices, rampant political corruption, and many other offenses; which helped their sales to soar. In this context, in 1904, The Appeal to Reason, a leading socialist weekly, offered Sinclair $500 to prepare an exposé on the meatpacking industry (Cherny). To accomplish his mission, Sinclair headed to Chicago, the center of the meatpacking industry, and started an investigation as he declared“ I spent seven weeks in Packingtown studying conditions there, and I verified every smallest detail, so that as a picture of social conditions the book is as exact as a government report” (Sinclair, The

A wealthy nation is not a prosperous nation, as a nation can be prosperous without being wealthy. Wealth can be defined as capital or vice versa as having properties or resources and turning it into money. A country that is wealthy can have both rich and poor people living in it. There is an upper class, middle class and lower class, which individuals are associated to. We all know that individuals in the upper class have more resources, materials, properties and more money than the middle and lower class. The position that Upton Sinclair takes is that a wealthy nation isn’t a prosperous nation as many immigrants worked in horrible conditions and lived in miserable areas in her book “The Jungle”. I claim that a wealthy nation isn’t a prosperous nation because people have to look at the quality of human life and factors such as education, health care, inequality, basic needs, social goods and literacy are key aspects in determining if a wealthy nation is a prosperous nation. The first body paragraph of my essay will be focusing on Gross Domestic Product and how it is not the best way to determine if a country is wealthy or not. Also it will be addressing the issues of Qatar which is the richest nation and has the highest per capita. The second body paragraph will illustrate the drive for capital by Heilbroner and how it can produce wealth or misery. Upton Sinclair book “The Jungle” is a good example as it shows how Jurgis left Lithuania to go to America to become a wealthy

Several years before and after the turn the turn of the twentieth century, America experienced a large influx of European immigration. These new citizens had come in search of the American dream of success, bolstered by promise of good fortune. Instead they found themselves beaten into failure by American industry. Upton Sinclair wanted to expose the cruelty and heartlessness endured by these ordinary workers. He chose to represent the industrial world through the meatpacking industry, where the rewards of progress were enjoyed only by the privileged, who exploited the powerless masses of workers. The Jungle is a novel and a work of investigative journalism; its primary purpose was to inform the general public about the dehumanization

The migration of foreigners to the United States has been one of the most powerful forces shaping American history this was especially true between 1860 and 1920. (American A Narrative History, Pg. 827). When immigrants traveled to the new land it was an arduous journey. Arriving in large cities often without their families or understanding the language was difficult.

Women and children were able to join the work force, but for little pay and long hours. Many were face with poor work conditions, hazardous health issues and short lunch breaks. The economic success was often left unchecked by authorities, who were not ready to deal with the consequences of these uncharted waters.

In the early 1900's a newly arrived immigrant worker faced numerous challenges that had to be overcome. Often times literally arriving with the clothes on their back and a few meager dollars, it was crucial for these

. A. Upton Sinclair wrote, “The Jungle”, to expose the appalling working conditions in the meatpacking industry.

The factory jobs were controlled by owners and bosses, who showed little regard for workers and their wellbeing. Workers forced themselves into work during even extreme illnesses; one absence or mistake and they might be replaced without question. These low wage jobs came with few benefits and no rights; there was nothing in place that protected the livelihood of the worker. Immigrant’s willingness to work all the time created these conditions.

Written by Upton Sinclair, The Jungle explores the sheer, harsh conditions of the living and working environment in the Chicago stockyards. The title is significant because it represents the realities of the labor force and depicts a wild, brutal environment that benefited the wealthy, while leaving the inferior working class fighting to survive. In Particular, the The Jungle denotes the life of Jurgis and his family in Packingtown and their hardships they face in the Chicago stockyards. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle has a significant title because through corruption and capitalism, the weak and poor suffer, while the strong and wealthy flourish.

A great majority of the poor immigrant was neglected in the town of Packingtown, Chicago. The children were allowed to rummage through

     The working conditions for these immigrants at the meat packing plants were appalling and displayed how badly in need of a change they were. Workers in the factory that did unskilled labor would be paid only somewhere between a mere fifteen to twenty-five cents an hour. They would have to work from early in the morning until it was dark at night, with only a half hour break for lunch. They had no choice but to accept whatever position

Factories could hire these immigrants because the work did not require much skill. These factories, however, had terrible working conditions. Cities became dirty and overcrowded. Tenement buildings were skinny, small, unsanitary, and housed sweat shops. For immigrants, working meant long hours, very low pay, and unsanitary conditions. Child labor supplied many children jobs in coal mines and factories. Because these factories were hazardous, many accidents happened inside- it was very common for people to lose fingers, toes, and even their lives. Many factory owners would even lock the doors of the factories so that the immigrants couldn’t get out. In the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire of 1911, for example, 146 workers died in a fire when factory owners locked the doors (Roark). The average work week was 59 hours and the average hourly wage was 21.7 cents. Many young homeless boys would serve as bootblacks or newsboys. An immigrant named Jacob Riis