Working Conditions In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

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.

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.

The early 1900s came with an abundance of changes. There were multiple waves of immigration causing increased social separation. There was also increased industrialization. The increase in industrialization provided many jobs for the incoming immigrants. However, these immigrants took on a lot more than just a new job when they came to America. Immigrants faced harsh living and working conditions, racial strife, poverty, as well as social class issues. Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle explores many of these hardships immigrants had to face through the lives of Lithuanian Immigrants. Throughout his novel, Sinclair focuses on poverty and thoughts of what America was supposed to be like to portray hardships immigrants faced when coming to America.

Upton Sinclair discovered how bad working areas were. There were repetitive and dangerous assembly lines. People could easily break their backs in any of the jobs. They didn’t even get breaks. People couldn’t advance their careers, and they worked in foul and filthy spaces. They worked ten hours a day, with six days a week.

When Upton Sinclair, a progressive era muckraker, wrote The Jungle in 1906, he was attempting to bring knowledge of the horrific conditions in Packingtown to the average citizen. His revelations on the terrors of Packingtown helped to slowly improve the lives of the immigrants. Sinclair’s pursuit of knowledge relates to the slowly growing knowledge of the characters in The Jungle. Throughout the story the characters find themselves in many tragic circumstances that could have been more easily avoided if they had been more aware of their surroundings. The immigrants are full of a false hope for success that disillusions the reality of their life. Examples of the consequences of lack of ignorance can be found in other literary works such as Two Sheep by Janet Frame. The overwhelming absence of knowledge in combination with unrealistic hope is the cause of the frequent dilemmas they encounter, and by that definition, can be considered the antagonist of The Jungle.

everyday got more difficult as the days went on. In the meat packing business things were

In the process of labor created wealth for the society, people are always exposed to machinery, equipment, tools and environment ... This is some active process rich, diverse and very complex, so always incurred the dangers and risks ... make workers can have an accident or occupational disease, so the question is how to limit the accident workers to the lowest level. One of the most positive measures is educational awareness of labor protection for everyone and make people understand the purpose and significance of the work of labor protection. In the Jungle, winter is the riskiest season in Packingtown and even Jurgis, he had compelled to work in an unheated slaughterhouse in which it is hard to see, hazards his life consistently by basically going to

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

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.

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Progressive reformers worked to improve the social, political, and economic problems in American society. Throughout this time, muckrakers helped reformers by revealing injustices to Americans through journalism, books, campaigns, photographs, and political cartoons. Poor working conditions, low quality of consumer products, and inferior democracy were present in American life during the Progressive Era; reforms such as state actions, the Meat Inspection Act, and Direct Primary helped to eliminate these corruptions.

Upton Sinclair reflects the reality of the people during the late 1800’s in his novel The Jungle. In his novel, Sinclair wants to promote Socialism by showing how people lived in the meatpacking plant and under a corrupt government. The inhuman working conditions, combined with the lack of hygiene and a corrupt government, made trying to make a living a total hardships for the low class and the immigrants.

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).

Upton Sinclair published a novel describing how unsanitary the meat packing houses in Chicago were. His publication resulted in the enactment of legislations that established more stern inspections of meat processing and packing houses. However, The Jungle resulted into a different consequence from what Upton intended. This is because Upton aimed that the book would shed light on the difficulty of workers in meat industry but ended up back firing. In this regard, the public ignored the need to improve workers’ welfare as described in the book but instead became more sensitively aware of the awful unsanitary conditions in the meat industry. The book’s description of contaminated, rotten, and diseased meat upset the public and ignited the enactment of new food safety laws. However, there is still an ongoing debate on whether the conditions were as unsanitary as Upton depicted or had he exaggerated the problem?

The textile factories were an unsafe and unheathly place for working class families to work.These factories were unsafe for children to work because the factories would over work the children,give them a insuffient diet and the factories were filled with diseases.For example a testimony from Joesph Hebergram to the Sadler committee he said; ‘i have damged lunges. my lgs muscles do not function properly and will not support the weight of my bones...the doctor told me that it was caused by dust in the factory,from being over worked and a insufficient diet.’this shows that the factories were an unsafe place for working class because they over work their employes and do not give a proper diet.This evidence shows first hand evidence of what happened

Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, depicts the struggles of Lithuanian immigrants as they worked and lived in Chicago’s Packingtown at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The United States experienced an enormous social and political transformation; furthermore, the economy, factories, and transportation industry grew faster than anyone had ever seen. Immigrants and migrants were attracted to city life for its promise of employment and their chance at the American Dream. The poor working class had little to no rights, and they grappled with unfair business practices, unsafe working conditions, racism, Social Darwinism, class segregation, xenophobia, political corruption, strikes, starvation, poor housing,