Working Conditions In The Jungle

The Out of Many textbook discusses the history of America. A huge part of the history in America is industrialization. Chapter 19 of the textbook talks about the industrial city in which The Jungle by Upton Sinclair opens the realities factory life and work in the early 1900’s. The Jungle tells about the lives of the workers in factories, specifically meat, and how harsh and disgusting their work really was. The topic of industrial cities and their living and working conditions from the Out of Many textbook is weaved in The Jungle . The Jungle portrays the horrifying struggle of life in highly populated cities and the unsafe factory conditions that came along with the city that chapter 19 of the textbook discusses.

Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tension in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries through his novel “The Jungle”. He used the story of a Lithuanian immigrant, Jurgis Rudkus, to show the harsh situation that immigrants had to face in the United States, the unsanitary and unsafe working conditions in the meatpacking plants, as well as the tension between the capitalism and socialism in the United States during the early 1900s.

Intro: When people eat food they do not think about what is in it, or how it is made. The only thing people care about is what the food tastes like and how much they get. During the 1900’s the meat packing industry had not regulations of any kind. All that mattered to the industry was that they made as much money as possible with as little expenditure as possible. During this times people were often made sick and died either from working conditions or poor food quality. 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.

In “ The Jungle”, the author Upton Sinclair states that “ I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach”. This means that Sinclair wanted to muckrake the Meat Packing Industry to seek attention for the workers, but instead food became a bigger concern. The characters Jurgis, Ona, and Marija with fellow family members are Lithuanian immigrants who came to PackingTown in hope for a better future, however they came to realize that the whole town is run by capitalist. Although Sinclair intentionally uses metaphors and similes to depict the characters struggle in the horrible living and working conditions in Packingtown, his purpose is undermined and overlooked by his use of realism to depict the food process.

After reading Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, child labor, urbanization, industrialization and immigration are problem quite sore during 1880-1910 period.

The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair was an expose on the life of those who lived in Packingtown, Chicago. Packingtown was where most of the people who was looking for work lived, it was a very crowded city. Job openings were scarce and most of the jobs were very unsafe. Most of the people in this part of town were poor, so they did not really have much doubts of food,. The Jungle exposed the horrific work conditions, the poor food quality, and the deceitfulness of the business owners.

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

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

As industrial strength grew and technology advanced, labor in America changed. Machines replaced many of workers’ old duties and some skilled laborers who had been previously valued became easily replaced. Immigrants who were willing to work under poorer conditions flooded into the United States, big businesses grew, and political machines whose interests were not that of the people occupied the government. Laborers worked ten hour shifts, six-day workweeks, and started work as children. In The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, he describes the painful and vigorous work in the meat-packing industry, saying, “The hands of these men would be criss-crossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them...They would have no nails, they had worn them off pulling hides; their knuckles were swollen so that their fingers spread out like a fan. There were men who worked in the cooking-rooms...in these rooms the germs of tuberculosis might live for two years.” These suffering Americans appealed to the government and labor unions for help, but they did not receive it due to lack of union organization, big business ties, and laissez-faire economic ideals. During the Gilded Age, the U.S. government suppressed the average industrial worker, and labor unions, though created for laborers’ aid, accomplished little and were futile when facing big business and government.

When Upton Sinclair wrote the Jungle, a book about the terrible environment of the meat-packing factories in Chicago, he hoped to motivate reform in immigrant working conditions and promote socialism. Instead, what shocked readers the most was the sordid surroundings in which their future meals were prepared. Sinclair 's audience saw these conditions as a threat to themselves, and that energized reform in the meat-packing industry. What scared audiences the most was how real this threat was to their lives. As can be witnessed in the results of Sinclair 's crusade, the most effective propaganda is that which rouses the visceral survival instinct. Donald Trump, a notorious real estate mogul, is running for president on a platform that started

Working in textile factories was unsafe for working class families because of the work environment they had to work in. Many workers had bad experiences in their time of employment. In the document “Testimony of Joseph Hebergam to the Sadler Committee” it says “Sadler: Did he tell you the cause of your illness? Hebergam: He told me that it was caused by the dust in the factories and from overwork and insufficient diet…”. This quote proves that the factories were unsafe to work in because it caused illnesses and even lead to death. In the interview with Dr.Ward he said “ the state of the health of the health of the cotton factory children is much worse than that of children employed in other manufactories.”(House of Lords interview with Dr.Ward).

These workers faced dangers everyday and received little pay. At the same time, many other people also had more money and leisure time. Henry George’s book, Progress and Poverty, talks about this divide. “ It was as though an immense wedge were being forced, not underneath society, but through society. Those who are above the point of separation are elevated, but those who are below are crushed down” (Document 3). George is basically saying that during this period, the middle and upper classes experienced an increased standard of living, while the lower class faced a dramatic decrease in their standard of living. The overall situation of the lower class would soon get better, and thus I believe that industrialization did more good than bad.

In the literary work, The Jungle, the author, Upton Sinclair makes a commentary on the deceitful and dark truth of the American dream. This was achieved by using the canned meat that was produced in Packingtown as a symbol to represent the dream that all the immigrants had about their new lives in America. As the story progresses, the reader, along with the protagonist, Jurgis will discover that the American dream lies cloaked behind a shroud of beautiful lies that masks the vile truths that are the American dream and the canned “beef” processed by the corrupt meat business in Packingtown.

Across the course of history, mankind has attempted many different courses of action in order to industrialize their nation into a golden age of amazing technology. One of these times in history, known in American as the Industrial Revolution. During this amazing time, many different technologies were invented that truly changed the world, but at the same time, many disputes occurred between the working class and the upper class in the steel industry, described by Neil Irvin Painter in Chapter 4 of “The Depression of the 1890’s”. Many others would agree that the conditions that were put forth to the working class at the time were unfair, unjust and just plain wrong to have human beings endure.

Indeed, the laws were meant for the workers in the factories to have safer working conditions, but it never really worked out. Records vary, but it is known that as many as 35,000 workers killed and another million injured on the job in 1900. (Lutz,