Upton Sinclair's The Jungle: The USAricultural Industry

The three essays assigned this week had several common threads running through them. The strongest core theme is the rapid change in the food cycle in America and the vast changes that have taken place in the way by which we grow, produce, and process the food that average Americans eat. The food we eat now is drastically different from what our grandparents grew up eating and the three essays each examine that in a different way. Another theme is the loss of knowledge by the average consumer about where their food comes from, what it is composed of, and what, if any, danger it might pose to them.

In the 1900s, only few people cared where their food came from and what was put into it. However, in 1906 Upton Sinclair wrote a book about the meat packing industry, called The Jungle. The purpose of the book was for everyone to realize the harsh working conditions and labor issues. As a result, people were disgusted on what was put into their food and the unsanitary conditions. When people read that, “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” (Sinclair 114), the readers cared more

In early 1900, specifically, 1906, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was written. This novel told the story of a Lithuanian immigrant who worked in a filthy Chicago meatpacking plant. It exposed the meatpacking industry by stating their vile practices not only towards their meat but their workers as well. This was a result of the combination of many immigrants in the United States to pursue a better life, and the fact that many big industries were looking for ways to maximize their profit.

A muckraker is what is considered today an investigative journalist. In Sinclair’s case, he is considered a muckraker because he “wanted to investigate the meat-packing industry” in order to write about the working class, especially the immigrants working in them. As he began his investigation, however, he discovered dirty and unhealthy conditions in a workplace with unsafe standards. The applicable theme would be Culture and Society (CUL) because although he speaks about the working class and work conditions, he focuses on society as a whole. He writes “The Jungle” to describe to them the dirty, “unhealthy conditions, and general absence of meaningful safety standards in the workplace”. It is centered around the ideas and beliefs of proper work and health conditions.

In the early 1900s, food safety was an incredibly unfamiliar and overlooked part of America’s food industry. Written by muckraker Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, was a controversial novel that depicted the harsh living and working conditions of immigrants working in the food industry. After the release of The Jungle, thousands of meat-eating Americans were horrified at what had been happening in factories. Disgusting yet accurate details presented in The Jungle were the basis for the creation of laws to stop food production from becoming so unsanitary.

Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle is a novel, which affected the food industry in 1900’s but also in America today. People have learned over the years the truths about the food industry, revealed through Sinclair’s detailed evidence. Sinclair meant to aim at the public’s heart but instead he shot straight at their stomachs. One would easily be convinced to never again buy or eat meat again. Fortunately, people have seen changes from 1906 and have been currently trying to repair the Food Industry. The food industry has better improvements yet; it still needs a thorough cleansing. Although food production has bettered in the last 100 years by its treatment of workers and government’s oversight, it has had some adverse effects like company’s protection

The main goal of businesses, in the growing manufacturing economy, was to produce the most product at the cheapest price. With a large influx of desperate immigrants looking for jobs, companies were able to quickly capitalize on the rights of vain workers. Viewing as them as easily replaceable, owners were easily able to take advantage of the rights of workers and utilize them to their advantage. The desperation prevalent in those willing to take the jobs that nobody else wanted supplied labor to factories, often for a high price. Worker’s rights were often manipulated in the industries exemplified throughout The Jungle. However, readers at the time were not very concerned about the petty immigrants living on the lower rung of society. Rather, they cared about what affected them most: the condition of the meat they were eating-- and had been eating-- for years, that were produced by some of the very factories mentioned in Sinclair’s novel. For the majority of The Jungle’s readers, the fact that poor immigrants were being exploited was not bothersome. Instead, the fact that the food that readers had been eating for years contained the power to kill them seemed shocking, pushing the nation into a worried frenzy. Readers were disgusted by the facts they were reading, catalyzing the creation of administrations like the FDA. Thus, Sinclair’s purpose of writing The Jungle failed to bring readers to advocate for the rights of workers trapped in the low wages, unsafe working conditions, and long hours of meatpacking factories, but rather, succeeded in opening the country’s eyes to the meatpacking practices that went on behind closed doors and the establishment administrations to protect the public from these unscrupulous

I know a lot of people don 't know how to farm nor do they want to. But a lot of people forget on caring about where and how they got their produce as long as it is on the market for them to feed themselves or their families. What they don 't know is more and more these days the animals are living in horrible factories their whole lives. Which means they aren 't being treated wrong. They are neglected with the proper food and are being drugged with medications like steroids. They are abused physically, emotionally, and mentally not even knowing there is another side to life. Though they can 't tell you a picture is worth a thousand words. But natural farming is a free and peaceful way of giving to nature naturally when it gives back to you.

Michael Pollan’s alternative to Factory farming has given a huge insight into a better ethics on food. In “The Animals: Practicing Complexity” Michael Pollan writes about a polyface farm and how it works. The goal of a polyface farm is to emotionally, economically, and environmentally enhance agriculture. Everything on a polyface farm has the potential to be helpful to something else on the farm. Pollan states “The chicken feed not only feeds the broilers but, transformed into chicken crap, feeds the grass that feeds the cows that, as I was about to see, feeds the pigs and the laying hens” (Pollan 345). This chain of profit very beneficial to farms because overall they spend much less money and have more money to spend elsewhere. There 's

Millions of Americans view “hard and laborious” work as mowing the lawn or going to an office job eight hours a day. Young teenagers regard these duties as “chores”, miserable and tedious tasks; however, most of these people are oblivious to the mistreatment and overworking the meat industry workers experience daily. Since the 20th century, these employees have been exploited and taken advantage of by the large corporations in the food industry. In the novel The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, revelations are made about the evil ways of the meat factories in the early 1900s. Although the working conditions have improved in several ways, today’s industry is not much better, and food investigators Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan expose the realities

Upton Sinclair’s literature influenced people into getting help from the government. “The book's horrific description of conditions in the meatpacking industry led to a public outcry, and helped promote the passage of the Meat Inspection Act (1906) and the Food and Drugs Act (the Wiley Act) (1906)” (Badertscher). The outcry that occurred partially because of The Jungle influenced people to get the problem solved by the government. America’s rallying against the meat-packing industry had a gargantuan role in creating the Pure Food and Drug Act. A group that was knowledgeable of the effects certain chemicals have on food was appointed to regulating the standards of the meat-packing industry. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Division of Chemistry was charged with enforcing the Food and Drugs Act, which prohibited interstate commerce in foods, drinks, and drugs that were mislabeled or adulterated” (Badertscher). A chemistry affiliated group was put in charge of monitoring of the produced meat. The meatpacking industry was regulated and supervised constantly to ensure that any and all produce is acceptable for consumption. The meat-packing industry took a massive blow from the popularization of “The Jungle” and its revealing

Throughout American history, propaganda pieces have been used to sway the public opinion on one matter or another. The famous Federalist Papers were used to sway the early American public to ratify the Constitution. The Civil War also heavily relied on propaganda to recruit soldiers and boost morale. At the turn of the 20th century, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was written as a propaganda piece on socialism, however, it was remembered for its cometary on the ethics of the meat packing industry. Although its goal of turning America into a socialist society was forgotten, it served as one of the most efficient propaganda pieces on the meat packing industry. A century later the documentary Food, Inc. was produced for the same purpose of drawing attention to the food industry as a whole. Although monopolies on the meat industry have increased after being broken up and food workers treatment is similar to those in The Jungle, there are now more government regulations in place, ensuring food safety to a

The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, is a renowned source of political fiction that pioneered the movement of food safety in the United States. The Jungle was first published in a socialist newspaper in 1905 and then later adapted into a novel in 1906 after popular demand. Sinclair initially wrote the exposé as a way to change the unfortunate circumstances of immigrant laborers, whose working conditions that were believed to be unacceptable for any laborer in the industry. Sinclair leaves short references of his political opinions in the novel in various locations throughout the text “As if political liberty made wage slavery any the more tolerable!” (Sinclair 31). Written as an indirect

Imagine walking through a building that is crammed from wall to wall with thousands of chickens, making so much noise because of how little room they have to move around. “Corpses that have been in the cages for so long that their bodies have become mummified” (Humane Society of the United States). Walking on a floor that is caked with so many flies. Seeing the unsanitary location where the food you serve your family is coming from. You have just walked through a factory farm.

Food, Inc. is an incredible account of what really occurs in our food system in the United States. This documentary takes a closer look at the farming industry and unveils a very dark side. It is amazing to think that chickens have been re-engineered to produce more white meat and grow to their full size in 49 days compared to the usual three months. These chickens can barely stand since they cannot hold their own weight and are pumped with antibiotics due to their horrendous living conditions. It just doesn’t seem right.