Upton Sinclair A Progressive America

In the first place, Sinclair exposes imagery in order to illustrate the very unsanitary conditions found in these factories. He is able to make the readers picture the gross factory floors or the rotted meat. His strong choice of words enable the readers the ability to see what and why something has to change. For example in paragraph three, “There would be meat stored in great piles in the room; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats” (Sinclair 3). This quote paints a picture in the readers’ minds of just how bad the conditions are in these factories. Also in paragraph 3, “Every spring they did it; and in the barrels would be dirt and rust and old nails and stale water-and cartload after cartload of it would be taken up and dumped into the hoppers with fresh meat, and sent out to the public’s breakfast” (Sinclair 3).The right word choice can make the readers picture the water dripping or the rats scattering. Sinclair’s word choice is so strong and detailed that readers can picture exactly what that would look like.

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."

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

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

But Hofstadter argues this transition towards a more popular government was preceded by muckraker journalists who played a pivotal role in exposing and distributing news. Even though muckraking journalism existed prior to 1900, their influence was not as extensive as in the Progressive Era. Muckraking journalists were

“The meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one—there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit. There was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage. There were the butt-ends of smoked meat, and the scraps of corned beef, and all the odds and ends of the waste of the plants, that would be dumped into old barrels in the cellar and left there. Under the system of rigid economy, which the packers enforced, there were some jobs that it only paid to do once in a long time, and among these was the cleaning out of the waste barrels. Every spring they did it; and in the barrels would be dirt and rust and old nails and stale water—and cartload after cartload of it would be taken up and dumped

Upton Sinclair was not only an activist; he was a journalist, a politician, and a writer. Born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 20, 1878, to father Upton Beall Sinclair Sr. and mother Priscilla Harden Sinclair, Sinclair Jr. was a creative child. Growing up in a house where his father was a liquor salesman, he grew up in poverty. However, he got to enjoy the spoils of the rich due to his, religiously strict, mother’s family. At the age of 10, Sinclair’s family moved from Baltimore to New York where he would soon build his foundation. At the age of 15, he was selling dime novels to create his own income. Because of his early writings, and other means of making money, he was able to enroll into New York’s City College and Columbia University.

Sinclair spent time undercover studying the conditions of meat-packing companies. The novel revealed that these factories mistreated it’s employees and were even infested with rats. Sinclair wrote, “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 into hoppers together.” This line explains how rats, poisoned bread, and the meat that people eat are all being cooked together. As the novel grew popular, people were appalled when they read about the conditions their food was being packed in. Because of this, the Meat Inspection Act, and the Pure Food and Drug Act were created to ensure consumers the products they receive are

The novel follows Jurgis's Lithuanian immigrant family into the disgusting tenements and meat packing factories of Chicago. There, they suffer the loss of all their dreams of success and freedom in America. They find themselves leashed to the grinding poverty and misery of the city slums despite all their best efforts. Sinclair's purpose is to display the evils of capitalism as an economic system. "…had given to the thought to a struggle by the America's working class to free themselves from their enslavement under capitalism, and to the creating of a new and classless society controlled collectively by all the people in their self interest" (Harris 57). Sinclair was bemused by the public reaction to his phenomenally successful novel. "He said that he had aimed for America's heart, but had ended by hitting it in the stomach" (Harris 82).

Upton Sinclair wasn’t always known as a muckraker. He worked hard to make sure his writing helped people. He wanted to help people in poverty. What started as one article turn into a bestseller book. Although most people believe Lincoln Steffens is the best muckraker, Upton Sinclair is the best because his book, The Jungle, helped save lives.

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

set of terrifying and inhumanity acts take place on immigrants in the meat packing industry where many of them even lost their lives. They encounter extremes in freeze weather, heat exhaustion, overwhelming, and infectious disease. Upon Sinclair’s novel, where he depicts the scenery in the meat industries, "They don't waste anything. They use everything about the hog except the squeal." Yet most of them are grateful for getting a job because otherwise they would be in debt, starve and die. The author purpose of this book is to raise public awareness, soon after, The Food and Drug Act immediately takes a step on investigating animals slaughtering and working environment. Soon afterward, workers no longer work closed to the diseased animals and

Sinclair says, “The meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat

The early 20th century was a time for a booming economy and American prosperity. During this time, the America we know and love/hate today came into power. The emergence of a ‘middle class’ of Americans came from this time due to the jobs provided by factories and the formation of unions to keep some workplaces in check. From the introduction of the automobile to lower- and middle-class Americans for everyday use, to the harnessing of electricity and oil as power sources for everyday objects and tools, the early 20th century has revolutionized the American way of life to this day.