ipl-logo

Summary Of The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

570 Words3 Pages

Meat was the first food that triggered food-related federal laws. In the early 1900s there was a steep rise in the price of food, especially meat. Many people blamed the National Packing Co., which was created by the three major meat packing companies. Their monopoly allowed them the ability to control prices on the market with little competition. At this time, Adolph Smith wrote a series that detailed the unsanitary conditions in the Chicago meat packing plants in the medical journal The Lancet. Adolph Smith met with Upton Sinclair and further complained about the meat industry’s unsanitary conditions. Upton Sinclair had a deeper concern about the immigrant laborers of the meat packing industry. In 1906 he wrote The Jungle, a fictional account of the poor treatment of immigrant …show more content…

The Jungle had very strong imagery and was designed to get the public’s sympathy towards these workers. Instead the people became disgusted at the sanitation of the meat packing industry and appalled about how their food was processed. Upton Sinclair said: “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” Sinclair identified that the meat packing industry created a significant amount of true risk. The poor sanitation conditions increased the probability that people would get sick. It also affected everybody who ate meat, since the meat packing industry was monopolized. The perceived risk was very high after the release of The Jungle, since the outrage was so high. The biggest outrage factor was the fact that it was memorable. The extremely descriptive language that Sinclair uses in the book creates strong and powerful images in the minds of people that become very memorable. For example he wrote: “They use everything about the hog but the squeal.” This created a horrifying picture in the minds of people and made many of them sick to their

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

    1205 Words  | 5 Pages

    There was a kind of labors in the U.S. food industry stood on the floor with half an inch deep blood, and put up with the stench. But not only that, they worked faster, but earned less. In fact, they were immigrant labors, and this horrible treatment of them truly happened in the beginning of twenty centuries. The Jungle which was written by Upton Sinclair documented this inhuman treatment. However, a hundred years later, immigrants still suffer the harsh treatment in the modern food industry.

    Read More

  • How Did Upton Sinclair Protect The Meat Packing Industry

    580 Words  | 3 Pages

    Upton Sinclair was part of the group of people who wanted to improve the meat packing industry. He started to protest after going to investigate the Chicago Packingtown strike. Upton’s investigation led him to find that there were poor working conditions, and poor sanitation in the factory. There was diseased and rotten meat, and later, it was found that there was chemicals that are harmful to humans put into the meat. Also, it was found that many products were mislabeled.

    Read More

  • Chicago Meatpacking Industry In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

    1176 Words  | 5 Pages

    WHAT IS “THE JUNGLE”? The Jungle is book written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, published by Jabber & Company in the state of New York. It contains details on the Chicago meatpacking industry, originally written to help bring awareness to the harsh conditions of immigrants workers in these industries. The public, however, too the terrible, unsanitary conditions of these industries, with rats running along the meat, and employees going to the bathroom in the same spot they work with the meat in.

    Read More

  • Upton Sinclair's 1906 The Jungle

    314 Words  | 2 Pages

    With the information he gathered, Sinclair wrote The Jungle. In 1906, The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair was published. It was a fiction book, explaining to everyone the horrible, gruesome working conditions in the meat packing

    Read More

  • Upton Sinclairs's The Jungle

    209 Words  | 1 Pages

    The thesis of this review mainly consists of the issue with the school use of Upton Sinclairs’s “The Jungle”. The relevance with the book is that within this review there is a negative critique on how it is described to the students in the classroom. The author of this review, Louise Carroll Wade, argues that teachers have been kind to Sinclair. She explains that this novel was made to “call attention to the plight of Chicago packinghouse workers who had just lost a strike against the Beef Trust”. Also, she express her idea of how scholars have uncritically accepted Upton Sinclair's descriptions of the terrifying working and unsanitary conditions of the Chicago meat packing industry in 'The Jungle”, where in reality it was more skeptical.

    Read More

  • Overview Of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

    892 Words  | 4 Pages

    Most of the meat they consumed was mixed in with sawdust, human spit, urine, rat poison, dead rats, and even feces. Once people were made aware of this they were revolted and disgusted at what they had been eating. This uproar caused meat prices to drop instantly. Upton Sinclair said, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I punched it in the stomach.” After this book was published, many of the fans messaged the White House, demanding something be done.

    Read More

  • Upton Sinclair: The Role Of Social Reform In The Gilded Age

    2371 Words  | 10 Pages

    Upton Sinclair, a muckraker, brought attention to the American public, about the meatpacking industry in his book The Jungle. In his book, it revolved around a Lithuanian immigrant family, who immigrated to Chicago and the difficulties and poverty they faced while in Packington. The purpose of the novel was to bring about attention and expose the conditions of the meatpacking industry, so that the government would be forced to to fix it. The intended audience that Sinclair hoped it would catch the attention of was the American public so they could be exposed to the hidden truth about the meat packing industry and the government as well, so that they could also pass food safety laws.(Doc.2) Although it was a fictional story, it was successful in bringing attention to how filthy the meatpacking industry was to the government and public.

    Read More

  • The American Dream In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

    1045 Words  | 5 Pages

    Immigrant workers were limited of their freedom and constantly exploited due to the fact that they were working in hazardous working conditions, were living in deplorable conditions, and were being harassed under the intimidating power of corrupt politicians. Such miseries the immigrants had to face included the hazardous working conditions where they had to stay for long hours. There was no doubt that workers had either die or were injured as they worked in such environment. In Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, the dangers of working conditions are emphasized through Jurgis’ incident at the meatpacking plant.

    Read More

  • Changes During The Progressive Era

    1167 Words  | 5 Pages

    The book the jungle written by Upton Sinclair 1906 documents the meat processing industry. A quote from the book reads "there was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage… The rats, [poisoned] bread and meat would go into the hoppers together" This quotation shows that there is radical change because it showed what the food industry was like before the reforms occurred and were put into place. It alerted quite a few people of the many unsanitary conditions and actions that placed consumers at risk of disease. Later that year, in 1906 the meat inspection act was passed by Congress.

    Read More

  • Upton Sinclair's The Jungle And The Meatpacking Industry

    601 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Jungle exposed the way workers were treated in the meatpacking industry. It stated that they were exposed to filthy workplaces, in which the smell would be outrageous. They were forced to work through these smells for non-stop hours. In addition, the smell would come from the meat itself. The smell would bring in rodents, such as rats, into the factories.

    Read More

  • 1900's Meat Packing Industry

    665 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although it may seem that the meat packing industry is still in turmoil because of their unwillingness to make known what foods have Genetically Modified organisms present, the meat packing industry was much worse during the 1900’s because of the unsafe working conditions, and uncleanliness of the food. Body 1: The meat packing industry’s working conditions were much worse in the 1900’s than they are today. In the novel The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, working conditions were horrible for immigrants who were employed in these factories. People in these factories were worked very hard and used up till they could not work anymore. In the novel Jurgis broke his ankle because of the unsafe

    Read More

  • The Truth Shall Be Known: Muckrakers In The Progressive Era

    1194 Words  | 5 Pages

    Many workers were sick because the working area was filthy, they had to eat their lunch beside the pig that they are cutting (“Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle…”). The Jungle also exposed what’s really inside the canned meat the Chicago meat-packing industry processes. Many did not know that the meat were piled up on the floor before processing the meat in cans, the floor were covered by urine, sputum and even dead rodents (“Upton Sinclair’s The

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

    464 Words  | 2 Pages

    Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle in 1906 to encourage reform of the treatment of immigrants in Chicago. Due to its graphic descriptions of the meat packing plants, the novel brought reform in the food industry instead. The Pure Food and Drug Act required industries to label their food and to cease using chemicals and poisonous substances in their products. However, since the nineteenth century, the food industries have become worse with national monopolies and meat contaminated with e-coli, though they are still more sanitary because they must label their products.

    Read More

  • Meatpacking Workers In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

    1060 Words  | 5 Pages

    Revealing the harsh treatment of meatpacking workers and showing the reality of the disgusting conditions found in butchery shops to the public, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle became an enduring classic by American readers throughout the early twentieth century the prompted the later creation of the Federal Drug Administration. In the early 1900s, America was explosively transitioning from an agricultural society to a thriving manufacturing-based nation. As production demand in factories grew throughout the country, the work force needed to run those factories also expanded. A new type of demanding and dangerous work became prevalent throughout the nation, as immigrants coming into the “Land of Opportunity” found themselves desperate

    Read More

  • The Jungle Dbq

    238 Words  | 1 Pages

    Upton Sinclair wrote the novel “The Jungle” in 1906. The novel was written about what was going on in the meatpacking industry. What happened was Upton Sinclair went undercover in the meatpacking industry because he was curious about what goes on with the meat that he eats. In document 3 it was a chapter of his book and it told the reader that if the meat was sour that would rub soda in the meat and then give it to the counters as a free lunch. The meat was stored in piles in a room.

    Read More

More about Summary Of The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

Open Document