Food Manufactures have Taken Over

Many people believe Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose the harsh conditions of the meat-packing industry, which led to new federal food safety laws. This, however, was not the only point Sinclair was attempting to portray in this novel. While industry was one of the points addressed in The Jungle, another main point Sinclair wanted to get across to the public was that immigrants were being treated very poorly in American society. By 1904, immigrants made up most of the workforce of the meat-packing industry, so they had to deal with all the conditions of the workplace, including slim pay. These workers were crowded into small tenement apartments near the slaughterhouse, therefore making living conditions incredibly poor for everyone.

Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle had powerful political effects, resulting in his ultimate goal to create change. He was aware about the unsanitary conditions in the meat factories and therefore knew that something needed to be done. He was determined to implant a spark in readers and make them desire change. The variety of the rhetorical devices that Sinclair included helped him accomplish his goal. In chapter 14 from The Jungle, Upton Sinclair identifies imagery, personification, and pathos in order to inspire change upon the unhealthy standards and brutal work conditions in the factories.

Readers were not concerned with the treatment of workers, as portrayed by The Jungle, because they really didn't care for the working class, or more specifically, immigrants. However, readers were shocked when they discovered exactly how their meat was processed and prepared. Sinclair used just as much, if not more, gruesome detail in describing the products the American public was consuming, as he did when describing the workplace, living conditions, politics, society and Chicago's scenery. In a futile attempt to build up the readers' sympathy toward the wage-slaves, Sinclair also details the process in which foods not related to the meat-packing industry are prepared. For example, he writes, "their pale blue milk...was watered, and doctored with formaldehyde."

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was written to expose the brutality faced by the workers in the meatpacking industry. Sinclair wanted to show people what was really going on in the factory because few people were informed about these companies work conditions. He wanted to show the public that meat was “ diseased, rotten, and contaminated” (Willie).” This revelation shocked the, public which later led to the creation of the federal laws on food and safety. Sinclair strongly shows the failure of capitalism in the meatpacking industry which he viewed as inhumane, destructive, unjust, brutal, and violent (Willie).”

In the book “The jungle” by Upton Sinclair, Jr. is about the harsh conditions immigrants live thou. One chapter in particular talks about food and the uncleanliness of it. The meat packing district is where meat goes to be canned or packaged. There would be meat stored in great piles in

Sinclair’s writing started to become very eminent in the early 1900’s, and by the age of 16 his book The Jungle changes the food industry forever. In 1905 Sinclair was hired to work in “Packingtown” Chicago for a meat processing company for a pay of $500 ( $13,513.51 today’s money) (Upton Sinclair Hits Readers in the Stomach). For two months Sinclair worked in the meatpacking industry, afterwards, he went into solitude for nine months to write about the details of the industry. “The meat would be shoveled into carts,

The lack of oversight in politics allowed industries to circumvent controversy and take advantage of the american people. Furthermore businesses such as the meat industry were able to sell unhealthy meat to the people. As well the meat industry provided unsanitary and harsh working conditions in which nobody could work in. For example in “The Jungle” Sinclair describes the horrific process in the meat industry and the reality of the business. In a meat packing factory a family has to deal with the harsh working conditions: “And yet, in spite of this, there would be hams found spoiled, some of them with an odor so bad that a man could hardly bear to be in the room with them” (160 Sinclair). The meatpackers revolting and toxic hygiene practice serves as a metaphor for the exploitive labor

Have you ever went to McDonalds and looked at the food and asked “is this even real food?” The food industry is a very questionable industry because of how corrupt it was during the late 1800s. A great example of the food industry corruption was the book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. In the book, Upton Sinclair expose all the corrupt of the late 1800s capitalists who would dehumanize citizens and their workers. The book talks about a man named Jurgis, who just came to America with his family and tells how his life starts to change. They talk about his job and their very poor work conditions and how they value human life. The capitalists and their industries not only affected Jurgis, but also his family and other citizens. In the book,

Despite almost a century separating two publications on the meat industry in the United States, the works of Upton Sinclair and Eric Schlosser contain eerily similar accounts in attempt to expose the dangers behind our food. These shocking revelations exposed by Sinclair and Schlosser have forever changed the way our nation views its food. Sinclair 's The Jungle and Schlosser 's Fast Food Nation discuss the topics of factory conditions and their safety, prevalence of immigrant workers, the conditions of animals and their health, and the corruption behind large corporations and the federal government. These overwhelming similarities have caused Schlosser to be compared to his predecessor Sinclair. Although each reading contains many similar elements, Sinclair and Schlosser had different intentions for the public reaction to their works.

In 1906 Doubleday published a fiction novel based in reality and centered on immigrant life in the Chicago meat packing district. “The Jungle,” was written by Upton Sinclair, a 27 year old author from Baltimore under a $500 advance from a socialist newspaper. This novel soon became a focus of controversy and change within the United States. Though known more for it’s horrific portrayal of the conditions inside slaughterhouses, only 60 pages of the 413 pages that make up “The Jungle” detail the goings-on of the meat packing industry.Sinclair’s book was intended to be a political and social commentary on the plight of the worker during the turn of the century. Oddly enough, the story opens with a wedding.

Back in the 1900?s, the food was not the healthiest or cleanest you would see nowadays. From Upton Sinclair?s book entitled ?The Jungle? written in the 1906, had called the nation?s concentration to abuses by the meat-packing industry. Sinclair disguised himself as a worker in a Chicago meat-packing plant to observe harmful and unsanitary practices. In the factory, to kill rats, Sinclair wrote, ?the packers would put poisoned bread out for them, they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together.? Hence, that would be the meat made for the public to eat. Many people did not consider that the meat industries actually did this, for example, former President Roosevelt doubted Sinclair?s viewpoints, and however, he ordered an investigation of meatpacking practices. The investigation report shocked him that he demanded more health and sanitary laws. In June 1906,

It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of mean and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go in the hoppers together.”# There was nothing the packers would not do to make a profit, if meat went bad they would pickle it or make sausage out of it, “there was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage; there would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected, and that was moldy and white-it would be dosed with borax and glycerin, and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for home consumption.”# The Packers took no responsibilities for the sickness that these meats caused. It was not uncommon for people to die from sickness they had gotten from eating bad meat, this is also an issue in “The Jungle” when a young family member suddenly dies one morning, “it was the smoked sausage he had eaten that morning-which may have been made out of some of the tubercular pork that was condemned unfit for export.”# Disease was also a factor for the workers, as quoted from the book “Meat and Men “Let a man so much as scrape his finger pushing a truck in the pickle-rooms, and he might have a sore that would put him out of the world.”# It was also not uncommon for people to fall into the vats and become lard. “The public revolted at the

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

This eye-opening novel was intended to focus on the difficult lives of immigrants and their harsh working conditions, but the public learned a great deal more from this story. As Sinclair once stated, “I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” This novel shined a light on the unsanitary conditions of the meat processing industry in Chicago. (“SS History”) Sinclair described the contaminated meat as diseased and rotten. The novel gave detailed descriptions of unclean work conditions and pointed out the lack of regulations within the food industry. (CRF-USA) The book became widely popular and the public was appalled by what they read. Sinclair’s book contributed to the change in laws and regulations surrounding food production, and played a large role in the passing of the first Food and Drug Act of 1906. (Friis,

The book, The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair had a major impact on the way the world saw the American Meat Packing Industry. While Upton Sinclair originally intended to appeal to the public’s heart concerning the conditions and the treatment of workers, it was obvious that the book had more of an impact on the meat industry. The public was outraged by the stories of waste meat being canned as wholesome meat, workers falling into vats and being processed as lard, and dead animals being processed when the inspectors weren’t looking. Upton was quoted in saying, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach” (Kantor 1976). The impact that this fictitious novel had, can still be seen today. After the outrage of hearing