Hunter Thompson Biography

He became reclusive and antisocial, his parents fought and he felt abandoned by his classmates from being the new kid so he would escape by disappearing into the woods and killing animals. He also started to act out more at school, all because his parents started fighting and he had to adapt to his new life. One study by sociologist Arnold Arluke found that

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,

Upton Sinclair is most known for his criticisms of the meat packaging industry in his book The Jungle. For close to 2 months, Sinclair worked in a Chicago meat package plant in order to expose the hidden truths of the industry. This was one of the first examples of a journalist immersing themselves in the material coved in

“I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” A quote by Upton Sinclair from his best known novel The Jungle. Sinclair, a social crusader from California, was an activist writer whose work often uncovered the social injustices occurring during his time. At the age of 14 Sinclair proved to be a force to recon with when he started attending City College of New York. After graduating Sinclair began grad work at Columbia University supporting himself by writing dime novels. In 1904 Sinclair was sent to Chicago by the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason to write an exposé. It’s intentions were to sympathise with the appalling treatment of the immigrants working in the meatpacking industry. After spending weeks undercover researching, Sinclair wrote a manuscript that would become The Jungle. In 1906 The Jungle became his sixth and most successful novel. The novel exploited the quality and impurities in processed meats and in results

Hunter S. Thompson was the man responsible for what is known today as gonzo journalism. This type of journalism is written in the first-person narrative and places the reporter in the middle of the action, allowing for personal experiences, emotions, and biases in a way that defies traditional journalism. Thompson’s subversive style of journalism was so radical that according to Jennifer Marinelli’s (2010) post on the Michigan Online News Association, “Thompson didn’t just create a new form of journalism. He created a new way of thinking that is still important in today’s society” (para. 2). In other words, he didn’t just transform journalism; he transformed people’s minds. Perhaps this should not come as a surprise that such a man could

Upton Sinclair is one of the most well known muckrakers from the Progressive Era(1890-1920). He was a writer who wrote about 100 books and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943. In 1904 he was sent to Chicago by the socialist newspaper,Appeal to Reason,to expose the meatpacking industry and created it into a novel called The Jungle. According to “Upton Sinclair's The Jungle:Muckraking the Meat-Packing Industry” it states, ‘“Almost as an afterthought, Sinclair included a chapter on how diseased, rotten, and contaminated meat products were processed, doctored by chemicals, and mislabeled for sale to the public. He wrote that workers would process dead, injured, and diseased animals after regular hours when no meat inspectors were around. He explained how pork fat and beef scraps were canned and labeled as "potted chicken."’ This is what Sinclair would write about in The Jungle. It became very

Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, was written about the meatpacking industry of Chicago in 1906. The inside look at the processes of the factories opened the eyes of the American people and led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Throughout the novel, Sinclair brings to light the true conditions in the meatpacking factories through the life of a family of Lithuanian immigrants. The atmosphere created by Sinclair in The Jungle is comparable to a literal jungle through concepts such as corporate hierarchy, Social Darwinism, and metaphorical language.

There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust” (Sinclaire 21-2). As the twentieth century began, the younger generation was more educated and had increased access to news and media, and the middle class had the power to make change. Like many muckrakers like Sinclaire, they processed their research into the news and media to spark reform and call out the disastrous truth under the seemingly great era. Sinclair explains how the meat packaging process was like at the Chicago Packing House, illustrating the unsanitary conditions as well as the “tricks” workers were told to do in order to sell old meat. Consumers were being sold disease ridden product without knowing, while the business benefited. Without Sinclaire and other authors, no one would know about the corruption of the Gilded Age, but they would only see the prosperity of the business, even when it wasn’t truthful or humane. This business was one of many that was corrupted during the Gilded Era, and through Sinclair's muckraking, he exposed the company, which evidently, contributed to the Pure Food and Drug Act, setting standards for all companies, minimizing misconduct. Another example of muckraking during the Gilded Age was also in Sinclair's, “The Jungle”, which also exposed treatment of the laborers by big businesses. Sinclaire not only illustrated the unhygienic acts of the meat packing industry but also stated

struggles he faced to overcome it. He had a hard childhood and career due to prejudice and

Thesis Statement: Upton Sinclair was a muckraker who wrote, “The Jungle”, which exposed the problems of the meatpacking industry.

He grew up as the kid with the eagerness to learn and experience life along with the trait of intelligence which he used to his advantage. Sometimes he would give a random quote or fact out of the blue with no connection to the current topic. People would make fun of him out of jealousy to his knowledge

The Jungle not only impacted food and labor laws, it also helped refocus American attention on Progressivism. Through Sinclair’s journalistic depictions and socialist beliefs, he helped fuel the Progressive Movement. During this time, Americans worked on improving working conditions and lifestyles, exposing corruption, and expanding democracy. Arguably, Sinclair’s work inspired Americans to demand change. Sinclair, like every other powerful writer, educated his readership and forced them to reevaluate their societies. In his case, the pen really was mightier than the

The common way books are written is that authors have an idea and then they use different elements to make the book what it is. Upton Sinclair is a world famous, award-winning author and a politician. He, like other authors used elements when he wrote his most famous book, The Jungle. The Jungle inspired change in the meat packing industry because people saw the awful condition the meat that they bought was in awful condition. The world in this time was very different form today’s age. Many labor laws have changed through the last one hundred years, and the food sanitary has also changed. In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair uses the elements of historical context, biographical info, and literary elements in making the book what it is.

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is remembered as a journalist who used his own unique style of writing to add narrative to reinvent investigative journalism as he saw it. His style inspired many journalists, and I was sadden to read of his death, at his own hand. The short story that he wrote following the World Trade Center bombings in 2001, Fear and Loathing in America, for ESPN featured a narrative that captured the reader. This article, and indeed his unique style of writing were examined in an obituary written by Richard Keil in 2005.

Even after forty years, Hunter S. Thompson’s creation of gonzo journalism became a new style of writing that remains imitated. Gonzo journalism has many different characteristics; one of the most predominant is