Food is the sustaining life force that drives the human race forwards from day to day. As daily consumers of food products, it is automatically expected that the producers of such important products aim to produce goods that will help the consumer and attribute to their health. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. At the turn of the twentieth century, food sanitation in factories was at an all time low. Adding to this issue were the harsh conditions in which the workers were forced to work in. Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle in order to improve worker conditions as well as sanitation in factories. Today, there has been little to none improvement in these fields, as exposed by the video Food Inc. Comparatively, The Jungle and Food Inc. demonstrate how America’s food sanitation and worker conditions have not changed substantially over the century separating them. …show more content…
The immigrants were “low-class and mostly foreign, hanging always on the verge of starvation, and dependent for its opportunities of life upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave-drivers” (Sinclair 113). Jurgis and his family are exposed to harsh conditions such as dangerous chemicals, extreme cold, poison, and disease. Not only did these conditions affect the workers, but also the meat. Borax was used to clean the meat of bacteria. The plants would reuse spoiled meat and turn it into sausage. Sinclair wrote The Jungle to promote better working conditions. It did influence child labor laws as well as the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 which slowly ensured better working conditions, more reasonable pay, and cleaner
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.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a book that shows social darwinism. Social darwinism is shown in the book when Jurgis breaks his shoulder working in the steel factory and he has to stay at home to get better, but when he goes back to work they already have someone else in his place already. So Jurgis has to go around town looking for a new job but no one will hire him because he’s blacklisted. Other themes in the book are capitalism and socialism. Capitalism has driven people to do terrible things in order to survive.
A Book for Societal Change As one thinks about the change brought about by a book named The Jungle, one might think of its call to preserve forests or wildlife. However, in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, he writes about something completely different. Sinclair writes this book to expose the meat packing industry and its horrific conditions for the meat and for the workers while also promoting socialism as the ideal form of government. His socialists views expressed in the book lead the book to be banned in several countries.
For many decades the food system was an endless controversial issue on how our food was processed and the impertioness. This issue influenced Upton Sinclair who wrote a book called “The Jungle”, which exposed the secrets of the meat industry and unsanity poor conditions of the slaughterhouses, indeed, this book inspired president Roosevelt right into action for solutions for the problem, with great struggle the meat inspection Act of 1906 came into law. Till today many reformers and authors are exposing the large corporations that have full control over the food production and how fast foods had a huge affect on families all over the world. For example, Fast Food Nation, Food Inc, and Fast Food Babies had one aim and that was to bring awareness
In the twentieth century, the government of the United States began taking more of an interest in the food industry. Soon after the twentieth century began, the government realized the harsh conditions in the factories and how unsanitary they were so they went from favoring big businesses to passing laws against the cruelties they did and regulating the items sold in the United States. The government’s regulation of the food industry in American history has evolved from them ignoring the problems and letting factories do what they wanted in the nineteenth century, to them having full control over the food industry in the present-day by passing laws and creating organizations such as the Meat Inspection Act, Pure Food and Drug Act, and the Food
Written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, The Jungle is a novel meant to describe the social and political situation of the time, having as a basis his undercover investigation in a meatpacking plant in Chicago, for the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason. The story, set in the Chicago of the time, describes the life of a group of immigrants that, persuaded by the idea of the American Dream, embarked themselves in the most important journey of their lives. In the city, they would have to overcome the many challenges that an industrial city holds, such as the meatpacking industry, that sells spoiled meat, and oppresses workers, having to work long hours for a minimum wage. The book soon became one of the most influential books of its time. It turned
During the era of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, the book soared in popularity— for numerous reasons. While Sinclair’s original intent was to expose the poor working conditions of the working class citizens, it spread further than that in its readers' hearts. His book went on to expose the food industry, and how horrid the things were that were put in the meat to be consumed by unsuspecting individuals. This discovery led to a movement of people demanding better food conditions and health standards worldwide.
The Jungle Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is a gut wrenching novel at the turn of the century, providing readers’ with a vivid portrait of the American meat-packing industry. Appalling most readers, his novel’s exposure of the meat-packing industry subsequently led to government regulations on the food industry. As we divulge deeper into the novel, we will begin to discuss Sinclair’s original intentions, the ramifications caused by the novel, how the ideas expressed still remain in today’s society, and examples of how other crises have led to the passage of legislation. From these topics, we can hopefully obtain a stronger grasp on one of the most impactful books in American history.
The book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a good nonfictional read for those who don’t know much about immigration and discrimination. Sinclair uses the characters Jurgis and Ona that move to a the center of Chicago 's meat packing industry to demonstrate the cruel treatment that was given to immigrants from American’s. The theme of The Jungle is to show the evil of capitalism in the world at that time. Jurgis’s family was treated unfairly under the law for being immigrants. Sinclair tries to portray all the ugly sides to capitalism in this book by showing how it is effecting Jurgis’s family.
Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle depicted many disturbing social injustices immigrants had to endure at the time during the 19th century. Jurgis and his family moved to America in search of a better life, but upon arrival the harsh reality set in that America was not what everyone said it to be. They suffered many hardships. The working conditions, when they could find employment, were terrible. They battled discrimination, they were grossly taken advantage of, and survival from day to day in Packingtown slowly worked to deteriorate their faith.
In February 1906, Upton Sinclair would write and publish his fictional novel The Jungle. This book, which was intended to focus on the exploited workers in the meat industry would depict the unsanitary conditions for a mere 10 pages. Missing the point of the novel, Americans were disgusted by the conditions of the packing plants, rather than outrage at the mistreatment of the workers at these plants (Kauffman). The Jungle spurred new legislation, but this legislation wasn’t the first that called for such standards. In 1641, the Massachusetts Colony had passed the Meat and Fish Inspection document which prohibited selling “diseased, corrupted, contagious or unwholesome provisions” (Massachusetts Act against Selling Unwholesome Provisions).
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.
The Bosses squeezed and drained the life of those men. In the book The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair he described the life of a struggling family try to work and stay alive in the filth. The working conditions in the factories were unsafe, unsanitary and people made little. The purpose of this book was for people to become socialist other than capitalist.
There are many other traps around America that deceive the immigrants because their weakness of not knowing English and the desire of getting a great life in America which lead them unpreparedly get fooled by the businessmen. These traps prevented the immigrants from leaving America, because of the significant amount of debt that they have to pay each month, which forced them to keep working and become the slave of this capitalistic society in America. Unfortunately, even they work very hard, in most of the time they will not get anything in return, such that Jurgis’s family cannot even keep the house at the of the book and many of family members’ health destroyed by the harsh working conditions in the
They provided a voice for the American people providing an accurate picture of living conditions in communities. Upton Sinclair was as famous writer that wrote a novel called The Jungle that provided an accurate description of the living conditions of immigrants in Chicago and the industrial industry. The novel caused a heightened concern for safety from consumers and public officials and also targeted concerns of sanitary issues and packaging violation in the meatpacking industry. Upton Sinclair was considered a muckraker journalist that was responsible for inspiring public outrage which, cause numerous political movements in the early 1900’s. Sinclair’s novel, the Jungle exposed the inhumane living conditions and treatment of immigrants while also exposing the unsanitary conditions of the meat packaging industry.