!["It's the meat that made her sick." [Poster for the 1914 film adaption of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.]](../images/jungleposter2.jpg)
At the turn of the Twentieth century, the United States was entering the era of progressivism. Following the tumultuous Gilded Age where each level of government favored big business, many lower-class Americans demanded change at the workplace. This included higher wages, the rights for workers to unionize without penalty, safer working conditions, amongst others.
On September 20, 1878, Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland into a poor, lower class family. His family resided in Baltimore, until their move to New York City when he was ten. After finishing Columbia University, Sinclair traveled along the Northeast. He married Meta Fuller and settled down in Princeton, N.J. After publishing many unsuccessful novels, he got caught in the growing socialist movement in America under Eugene V. Debs. Sinclair began to write books advocating change through investigative journalism; this practice was called muckraking. Upon hearing about a job in Chicago to investigate the meat-packing industry, he moved there to examine the workers’ conditions. He published his findings in The Jungle, a novel depicting an immigrant who worked in one of plants.
Although many people thought the aim of The Jungle was to target the unsanitary conditions of the meat-packing industry, Sinclair was more focused on revolutionizing America into a socialistic society. He advocated for the end of “wage slavery” and a redistribution of wealth.
How would Socialism change that?" asked the girl-student, quickly. It was the first time she had spoken.
"So long as we have wage slavery," answered Schliemann, "it matters not in the least how debasing and repulsive a task may be, it is easy to find people to perform it. But just as soon as labor is set free, then the price of such work will begin to rise. So one by one the old, dingy, and unsanitary factories will come down—it will be cheaper to build new; and so the steamships will be provided with stoking machinery, and so the dangerous trades will be made safe, or substitutes will be found for their products. In exactly the same way, as the citizens of our Industrial Republic become refined, year by year the cost of slaughterhouse products will increase; until eventually those who want to eat meat will have to do their own killing—and how long do you think the custom would survive then?
Excerpt from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Nonetheless, his book had a significant impact on society. Instead of helping out the working class, the book made the public aware that the plants were filthy and dangerous, posing a threat to the public. Therefore, this made it possible for the federal government to intervene and regulate the food industry with the passing of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Even though these acts were passed, change did not occur instantaneously. As a result, each state and local government passed its own set of rules and health codes to supplement. In Maryland, most health codes were not passed until 1910 when the legislature expanded the scope of power of the State Board of Health by creating the State Food and Drug Commissioner.
Materials compiled in this document can be used by educators to fulfill the following National History Standards for Grades 5-12:
Era 7- The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930)
STANDARD 1: How Progressives and others addressed problems of industrial capitalism, urbanization, and political corruption.
Standard 1A: The student understands the origin of the Progressives and the coalitions they formed to deal with issues at the local and state level
7-12: Explain how intellectuals and religious leaders laid the groundwork and publicists spread the word for Progressive plans to reform American society.
9-12: Assess Progressive efforts to regulate big business, curb labor militancy, and protect the rights of workers and consumers.
DESCRIPTION: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
DATE CREATED/PUBLISHED: 1906
SOURCE: Project Gutenberg (uncopyrighted text)
DESCRIPTION: Photograph, [Upton Sinclair, half-length portrait, facing right]
DATE CREATE/PUBLISHED: [between 1958 and 1968]
REPRODUCTIONS: How to obtain copies of this item
COPYRIGHT: Restricted: Information on reproduction rights available at Reference Counter. Copyright by Dave Iwerks, Northridge, California.
REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
DESCRIPTION: Photograph, panoramic picture illustrating the beef industry.
DATE CREATED/PUBLISHED: 1900
REPRODUCTIONS: How to Order Reproductions
SOURCE: Panoramic Photographs
REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
DESCRIPTION: Photograph, [Men, primarily African American, working with cattle carcasses hanging in a slaughter house in the stockyards].
DATE CREATED/PUBLISHED: [between 1904 June-Sept.]
REPRODUCTIONS: How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions
COPYRIGHT: Copyright and Other Restrictions
SUMMARY FROM American Memory: Image of men, primarily African American, working with cattle carcasses hanging in a slaughter house in the stockyards. The stockyards were owned by the Union Stock Yard & Transit Company in the New City community area of Chicago, Illinois. This image was probably taken at the time of the 1904 Stockyards Strike.
SOURCE: Photographs from the Chicago Daily News, 1902-1933
REPOSITORY: Chicago Historical Society, Chicago in conjunction with Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
DESCRIPTION: Photograph, Chicago - Meat Packing Industry - Swift & Co.'s Packing House: great soup kettles - capacity 350,000 lbs. each
DATE CREATED/PUBLISHED: c.1906
REPRODUCTIONS: Obtaining Copies
COPYRIGHT: Rights and Restrictions
REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C
DESCRIPTION: Photograph, Chicago - Meat Packing Industry - Swift's Packing House: automatic scraping machine (capacity 1000 hogs per hour)
DATE CREATED/PUBLISHED: c. 1906
REPRODUCTIONS: Obtaining Copies
COPYRIGHT: Rights and Restrictions
REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
DESCRIPTION: Letter, Upton Sinclair to President Theodore Roosevelt
DATE CREATED/PUBLISHED: March 10, 1906
CONTENT & SCOPE NOTE from the National Archives: In this letter to President Roosevelt, Sinclair supported the presence of federal inspectors in the meat-packing houses. He advised that inspectors should come disguised as workingmen to discover the true conditions, as Sinclair did when he researched his book "The Jungle."
SOURCE: Item from Record Group 16: Records of the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1839 - 1981
REPOSITORY: National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
DESCRIPTION: Act of December 4, 1905 (Pure Food and Drug Act), Public Law 59-384, 34 STAT 768, which prevented the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adultered, misbranded, poisonous, or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors and the regulation of traffic of such items., 12/04/1905
DATE CREATED/PUBLISHED: June 30, 1906
SEE ALSO: Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (The "Wiley Act") Public Law Number 59-384 34 STAT. 768 (1906) 21 U.S.C. Sec 1-15 (1934) (REPEALED IN 1938 BY 21 U.S.C. Sec 329 (a)
SOURCE: Item from Record Group 11: General Records of the United States Government, 1778 - 1992
REPOSITORY: National Archives
DESCRIPTION: Federal Meat Inspection Act, Title 21 Food and Drugs, Chapter 12 Meat Inspection
DATE CREATED/PUBLISHED: March 4, 1907
SOURCE: Food and Drug Administration
DESCRIPTION: AN ACT for preventing the manufacture or sale of adulterated,
misbranded, poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, water, candies and liquors, and for regulating traffic
therein within the State of Maryland, and to provide for the
punishment of violations of its provisions
DATE CREATED/PUBLISHED: 1910
SOURCE: General Assembly
January 5 - April 4, 1910
Session Laws in Archives of Maryland Online.
REPOSITORY: Maryland State Archives
DESCRIPTION: The Annotated Code of the Public Civil Laws of Maryland, 1911, Article 43 —Alternation of Food or Drink
DATE CREATED/PUBLISHED: 1911
SOURCE: The Annotated Code
of the
Public Civil Laws
of Maryland in Archives of Maryland Online
REPOSITORY: Maryland State Archives
Photographs from the Chicago Daily News, 1902-1933 . From American Memory, Library of Congress
Modern Meat. From PBS Frontline
Photographs from the Chicago Daily News, 1903-1933: The Jungle. From the Library of Congress Learning Page.
Progressive Era: Public Pressure and Government Actions. From PBS Frontline.
Upton Sinclair & the Muckrakers. From C-SPAN American Writers
The Power of Fiction. From The Discovery Channel.
Brown, Richard C. “The Muckrakers: Honest Craftsmen” The History Teacher, Vol. 2, No. 2. (Jan.1969): 51-56.
Harris, Leon. Upton Sinclair: American Rebel. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1975.
Hayes, Brian and PBS’s NewsHour Extra. “Featured Story: Sinclair's 'The Jungle' Turns 100.” Created 5/10/2006.
Herms, Dieter, ed. Upton Sinclair: Literature and Social Reform. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1990.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Harper Collins, 2001.
Swandos, Harvey, "The World of Upton Sinclair"Atlantic Monthly ( Dec. 1961): 96-102. Includes a discussion of The Jungle as an historical document.
Young, Harvey James. “A Move For Protection” Science, New Series, Vol. 248, No. 4957 (May 18, 1990): 896-897.
Walker, Francis. "The 'Beef Trust' and the United States Government." Economic Journal, Vol. 16, No. 64 (Dec., 1906): 491-514.
This document packet was researched and developed by Benjamin Elgamil.
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