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The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
New York: Penguin Books, 1905Labor conditions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century America were often oppressive. Labor unions were beginning to take root, but the industrialists generally held the upper hand. A hands off, laissez-faire approach to business characterized the role of the US government. At the turn of the century, government protection of the rights of workers and consumers was virtually non-existent.
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, published in 1906, describes the abysmal working conditions of a Chicago slaughterhouse as seen from the perspective of Jurgis Rudkus, a recent Lithuanian immigrant to the United States. Jurgis, his family and some of his friends immigrate to the United States full of hope for a better life. Instead, Jurgis experiences the horrors of a turn of the century slaughterhouse where temperatures plummet to below zero in the winter, the floors are covered with a half inch of blood and graft is rampant.
Living conditions at home are not much better. The house is built over a sewer, plumbing is shoddy and the landlord exploits them with rents they cannot afford. Over time, these dreadful conditions convince Jurgis that socialism is the path to labor salvation, and he enthusiastically joins the socialist cause.Comment
Sinclair's classic novel, The Jungle, immerses the reader into the world of despair experienced by many immigrants who were shamelessly exploited upon their arrival in the United States. Upton Sinclair was a socialist who dedicated the book to "The Workingmen of America." He hoped his book would rally people to the Socialist cause. However, the book's most dramatic impact was to galvanize public opinion in support of food and drug reform. Sinclair himself lamented that "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach." Sinclair remained a lifelong reformer until his death in 1968. In 1934, he came very close to winning the gubernatorial election in California.
The book contains an extensive bibliography, but it is likely that much of the book is based upon what Sinclair learned during the seven weeks he spent disguised as a worker in the Chicago plants and the surrounding neighborhoods when he was commissioned by the socialist weekly, The Appeal to Reason, to investigate the meatpacking industry (Afterword, Emory Elliott, 344).Reading Level: Young Adult +
Interest Level: 8
341 pages (excluding notes)Support the Following Instructional Objectives:
Excerpt
There was another interesting set of statistics that a person might have gathered in Packingtown - those of the various afflictions of the workers. When Jurgis had first inspected the packing plants with Szedvilas, he had marveled while he listened to the tale of all the things that were made out of the carcasses of animals, and of all the lesser industries that were maintained there; now he found that each one of these lesser industries was a separate little inferno, in its way as horrible as the killing-beds, the source and fountain of them all. The workers in each of them had their own peculiar diseases. And the wandering visitor might be skeptical about all the swindles, but he could not be skeptical about these, for the worker bore the evidence of them about on his own person - generally he had only to hold out his hand. (pages 100-101)
Picture of Upton Sinclair courtesy of the Social Security Administration at: http://www.ssa.gov/history/sinclair.html
Accessed July 2, 2002Historical Fiction and Idaho U.S. History Curriculum
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