Thesis Statement
The book, The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, exposed the underlying corruption of the horrid meatpacking industry of America, resulting in critical responses from the public and the creation of extensive laws and programs to ensure the health and safety of the American people, thus creating a catalyst for hygienic awareness in consumer product and factories in the United States, as well as the rest of the world.
"They use everything about the hog except the squeal."
-Chapter 3, pg. 38, The Jungle
Background
In the year 1906, a young, freelance writer named Upton Sinclair wrote the revolutionary novel, The Jungle. This fictional work, originally written to describe the lives of working immigrants, sparked a pivotal change in the functioning of the American meatpacking industry as well as the government's role in the production of goods. "Upton Sinclair was an American writer and reformer. Sinclair was an idealistic supporter of socialism and became famous as a 'muckraker.' The muckrakers were writers in the early 1900's whose principal goal was exposing social and political evils."
Simultaneously, this allowed Upton Sinclair to take part in the Progressive Era. During this time period of reform, there was an "effort to cure many of the ills of American society that had developed during the great spurt of industrial growth in the last quarter of the 19th century. The frontier had been tamed, great cities and businesses developed, and an overseas empire established, but not all citizens shared in the new wealth, prestige, and optimism." It marked the "point during the early 1900's where people who believed that the problems society faced (poverty, violence, greed, class warfare) could best be addressed by providing good education, a safe environment, and an efficient workplace." Their goals included "the desire to remove corruption and undue influence from government through the taming of bosses and political machines, the effort to include more people more directly in the political process, and the conviction that government must play a role to solve social problems and establish fairness in economic matters."
Short video overview on Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle and its effects from YouTube.com.
The images from the slideshow on this page were found on the following websites;
FailedMessiah.com, bookrags.com, nutritionwonderland.com, biography.com
FailedMessiah.com, bookrags.com, nutritionwonderland.com, biography.com