Upton Sinclair's 'American Dream Equation'

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 wrote The Jungle aimed towards the goal of showing the american population how wrongly the immigrant workers were being treated in society during the early twentieth century. However the book was highly acclaimed for its detailed explanation of the meat production industry instead and also the horrible conditions the workers had to work in. This novel was enough to influence President Theodore Roosevelt to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and change the entire food production industry in the United States. Known as a highly revolutionary novel The Jungle was enough to inform the american population about what was really going on with their food and in their society at the time.

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.

Upton Sinclair was the author of a book called "The Jungle". His book was designed to bring light to the conditions of those who canned meat in Chicago, but his foul descriptions of the unsanitary food, and the vile slaughterhouses resonated with his readers much more.

Although it was a shocking and revolutionary exposure to the hazardous environment of the meat-packing plants of Chicago in 1906, The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair, proves to still be relevant in modern day due strains of bacterial diseases contaminating meat and produce, and causing illness to the public. In its time, the content of The Jungle was supposed to illustrate the demeaning means of which labor was carried out in a new world of industrialization. Sinclair had a goal of exposing the horrid lifestyle impeded on a certain immigrant worker (and many more in the same situations), and ended up causing a revolutionary change in the working conditions of meat-packing factories in cities all across the United States. President Theodore

     While the works of Upton Sinclair are not widely read today because of their primacy of social change rather than aesthetic pleasure, works like The Jungle are important to understand in relation to the society that produced them.  Sinclair was considered a part of the muckraking era, an era when social critics observed all that was wrong and corrupt in business and politics and responded against it.  The Jungle was written primarily as a harsh indictment of wage slavery, but its vivid depictions of the deplorable lack of sanitation involved in the meatpacking industry in Chicago resulted in public outrage to the point where Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection

Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, follows the life of Jurgis Rudkus, his Lithuanian family, and friends who all recently immigrated to Chicago in search of a better life. Jurgis, Ona, and the rest of their family find jobs in Packington, the meatpacking industry of Chicago. Quickly they discover the difficulties of surviving in the United States during the early 1900’s through financial troubles, unreliable work, illness, and swindling. Through his novel, Sinclair exploits the dangerous working conditions of the Chicago meatpacking industry, the health violations, and the struggles the workers face to make ends meet. Contrasted with today’s food industry and the fight for Food Justice, authors Raj Patel, Gottlieb, and Joshi address the similarities between Jurgis and meatpacking workers to the agriculture and industry workers of today. All face challenges such as the struggle to survive on low wages, hazards in the workplace, and the mental burdens these jobs impose on workers. Upton Sinclair exploits the corrupt environment of the meatpacking industry but issues such as worker wages, public health, and sanitation remain important issues today.

In 1906, American Writer, Upton Sinclair wrote the novel The Jungle to portray the harsh working conditions for immigrants working in the United states. The original purpose of the book was to describe the American meatpacking industry and the working conditions associated with it to promote socialism. Author Upton Sinclair Commented, after the books release “I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." Ironically enough the book promoted concern for the health violations and unsanitary working conditions in the early twentieth century. The book the Jungle contributed to the Meat Inspection Act and reform.

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle discusses the evils of capitalism in a meatpacking sector of Chicago, also known as Packingtown. It was evident that Sinclair did not support a capitalist form of government. His socialist political beliefs certainly impacted the style and content of The Jungle. Sinclair strived to exploit the Chicago meatpacking factories and educate his audience of the dangers that a capitalistic government could have on European immigrants and public safety. While Sinclair was exposing the evils of capitalism, the public was disturbed by the gruesome details, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit in the stomach.” By exposing the despicable methods of food production and lack of personal hygiene within the factories, Sinclair unmasked the effects of a capitalist government during the early 1900s, revealing his socialist opinion and forever changing the nature of meatpacking industries.

The Jungle Book was a book written by Upton Sinclair in 1905 which discussed the meatpacking industry. It exposed the industry as a dirty industry that was not very well regulated at all and that the meat that they produced was often contaminated and could make individuals who ate it very ill. This caused major outrage throughout America and in 1906 a meat inspection bill was passed by Congress so that the meat industry could be regulated so individuals would not have to eat dirty meat like they did before. This showed the power of the Progressive Era as a major flaw in regulations was shown in 1905 and just a year later there was major legislation passed which was there to regulate the industry to protect the consumers.

The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair uncovers the horrors of working in the meatpacking district of Chicago. Sinclair acquired the inspiration to write The Jungle when he was sent into the stockyards to unveil the truth about the workingmen’s lives in Chicago. Sinclair’s story caused an uproar and led to him being labeled as a muckraker, a term that referred to journalists that documented the harsh conditions of workers during industrialization. He intended his novel to bring light to the socialist party, but instead the readers were more concerned about the diseased and mistreated meat that the were eating. Because of the upset, Sinclair’s novel led to the formation of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Sinclair published five novels between 1904 and 1906, but none were as influential or as popular as The Jungle. A silent movie was made as a film adaptation of this story in 1914. I have not read any of the other novels published by Upton Sinclair.

The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair is about Lithuanian immigrants moving to the United States seeking the American Dream. When they arrive, the family is faced with many hardships. Jurgis Rudkus’ family lives in an overcrowded city called Packingtown, in poverty. The Jungle tells readers about the struggles of being an immigrant in poverty and the horrors of the meat packing industry in the early 20th century. Sinclair’s goal was to make people aware of how hard immigrants had to work in terrible conditions. The public, though, was more concerned with the issues in the meat packing industry. Many people were now speaking out about food quality and working conditions.

The main thesis of Sinclair’s novel The Jungle is capitalism. He is attempting to highlight the negative aspects and provide a solution, in this case socialism. He provides a description of the employers up top who take advantage of, and provide poor working conditions for the lower class workers in order to maximize economic gains. Sinclair portrays the ripple effects on the lower class caused by capitalism. He shows how poverty can affect the home life of families, and how it can force people into horrible situations.

The latter never had to work or face adversity in order to achieve his wealth, and instead reaps the benefits of others’ work—in complete opposition with the Dream. Further, it is no coincidence that Jurgis makes more money than ever when he decides to live dishonestly and give into the corruption of the system, a common theme of the book. This effectively demonstrates that the fundamental American values perpetrated by the Dream, such as honesty and goodness, are just idealistic rhetoric that only serve to reinforce the class structure, rather than provide mobility through it. As Grandmother Majauszkiene tells it, the only way to succeed and advance one’s social status is to enter the web of corruption and prosper on the backs of the next generation of immigrants. This concept is fundamentally divergent to the Dream forwarded by

“After he graduated from college, he enrolled in Columbia University as a graduate student in 1897. Late in 1904, the editors of the popular socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason sent Sinclair to Chicago to examine the lives of stockyard workers. He spent seven weeks in the city’s meatpacking plants, learning every detail about the work itself, the home lives of workers, and the structure of the business. The Jungle was born from this research and was first published in serial form in Appeal to Reason. The first few publishers whom Sinclair approached told him that his novel was too shocking,