Uptown Sinclair's The Jungle

You want to help the citizens of Packingtown (Chicago) and stop the atrocities that are going on in the meat packing plants. However, when this book was written, Sinclair’s point was often skewed or just ignored. His purpose of writing the book wasn’t necessarily to draw attention to the meatpacking industry; it was instead to draw attention to Socialism, and how much better it is than capitalism. The books main themes are poverty, power, social classes, and suffering until the end when Jurgis finds socialism. However, socialism couldn’t remedy everything that capitalism broke.

The Gilded Age boasted a lot of great things for the United States. It created so much in such a short amount of time, but that time also brought bad things. Monopolies, factory accidents, horrible working conditions, and an ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor. These problems were handled very poorly due. This was due to nobody really caring about the poor and not eliminating trusts.

It wasn't just the conditions that they worked at that was the main issue, but rather the fact that the meat itself was unhealthy and possibly coated in bacteria due to the little care it received to stay clean. Neil Reynolds gave a summary of the conditions : "In a word, we saw meat shoveled from filthy wooden floors, piled on tables rarely washed, pushed from room to room in rotten box carts, in all of which processes it was in the way of gathering dirt, splinters, floor filth, and the expectoration of tuberculosis and other diseased workers," (Document B). The condition of the meat packing brought about an issue of welfare for the nation. So, in return to this matter, the Pure Food and Drug Act and The Meat Inspection Act were created to prevent further contamination of the meat.

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.

In Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, he accounts the vile methods of food preparation and the hazardous working conditions for immigrant workers. Sinclair argues how the growth of industrialized food production, in Chicago’s Packingtown, results in competition for jobs. Survival now solely depends on physical strength. Sinclair offers socialistic solutions to these problems such as advocating workers’ rights and benefits.

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.

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

During the 1900’s working conditions were undeniably horrible. In Packingtown everyday got more difficult as the days went on. In the meat packing business things were supposed to be done quick. Inside the factories packing, chopping, inspecting and people actions didn’t mix. Not only did the people in the factories suffered, the people outside of the factory also suffered.

Chapter 7 of Fast Food Nation discussed the starting of meatpacking industry and its downfalls. At first, Iowa Beef Packers (IBP) used the same principle as McDonald’s principle to make fast foods. IBP hired unskilled workers just to do simple and repeated work all day. However, competition with other companies made IBP low wages and health insurance options. This caused slaughterhouses to move West to gain cheap labor and land.

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. In the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, there were massive immigrants move into the United States, and most of them were from Europe. The protagonist, Jurgis Rudkus, like many other immigrants, have the “America Dream” which they believe America is heaven to them, where they can

The environment the workers dealt with was hazardous. They were usually required to work 12-14 hours a day, six or seven days a week, while being exposed to dangerous machinery and toxic chemicals such as ammonia and chlorine without proper safety equipment or training. Not to mention they walked on slippery floors all day due to blood from animal carcasses hanging from the ceiling. The meatpacking industry was well known for its unsanitary conditions, forcing workers to work in close proximity to rotting meat and animal waste.

The journalist sought to create a piece of political fiction that would induce reform and spread the ideas of socialism, an emerging concept of the time. Sinclair meticulously describes the horrors of Chicago’s meatpacking industry as seen through an immigrant worker’s perspective. By detailing the story of an immigrant chasing the broken American dream, he successfully related the novel to the large working class that had long suffered in the capitalist society. The most wrenching part of Sinclair’s writing was the filthy conditions of the meat plants. Not only was sanitation an issue, separation of family and lack of sufficient pay were also themes of the The Jungle.

In 1906, American writer Upton Sinclair published The Jungle which highlighted the harsh conditions Chicago’s immigrant meatpackers faced in meatpacking industries. Working undercover, Sinclair investigated how these industries exploited their workers by not providing basic sanitary conditions and regulating any safety precautions which often contaminated the meat supplies going out to the public. Per an excerpt from The Jungle, the men faced serious injuries such as sliced fingers and toxic inhalations which caused deadly diseases to upraise. Such conditions were inhumane which called for reform on the meatpacking industry from the public during the Progressive Era. Upton Sinclair was a muckraker who only wanted nothing but equality from corrupt industries.

A quote from the book describes the meatpacking, “This is no fairy story and no joke; the meat will be shoveled into carts and the man who did the shoveling will not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one." (Sinclair 146). This shows that government regulation is absent in businesses, even in bigger companies that release food in large quantities into the public. Sinclair calls attention to laissez faire, or the lack of government regulation in businesses especially ones that produce directly to the people of the

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