Essays on Upton Sinclair

Background of the author

A professor at the University of Sonoma- California, in the United States of America, Dr. Carl Jensen is also an author of prominent publications in the field of sociology that have scaled to global heights. A few books under his name include “Censored: The News That Didn’t Make the News and Why (from1976 to 1996)” and “20 Years of Censored News (1997)”. In addition, Dr. Carl Jensen has also featured in Project Censored- a media research project in 1976 that attained international recognition.

Thesis of the book

The book delves into how the American society was adjusted to become more flexible to ...

Introduction

The jungle was written in the year 1906 by an American journalist and novelist by the name Upton Sinclair. The author wrote this novel to be able to portray the lives that immigrants lived in the United States especially Chicago and other similar industrialized cities .Most of his readers were mainly concerned with his exposure to especially health violations and unsanitary practices that had for a long time been in the American meat packing industry. This was during the 20th century when he did this investigation for a socialist newspaper. The book also tries to depict about the working ...

The History and Modernization of Poultry Inspection Systems in the United States and the Food Safety Hazards that are Being Diminished because of Those Systems

Abstract

The accessibility, health benefits and low cost have kept the demand for poultry consumption up and poultry slaughter production plants moving forward; however, up until recent years there has been a lack of quality inspection standards leading to an increased amount of food safety issues. The pathogens that contaminate raw poultry products for human consumption are an issue in the United States. There have been new advances in technology which has led to an improvement ...

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is an exposé of the lives of immigrant workers of the meatpacking industry in Chicago. It revolves around the lives of a Lithuanian family who went to the United States in the hopes of living a better life but ended up destroyed and toyed by the rotten capitalist system. Sinclair uses the idea of the Darwinian evolution in a jungle, where powerless immigrant workers are preyed upon by cruel, wealthy and corrupt capitalists. The book’s agenda was to provide a compelling critique of capitalism, and raise a socialist alternative. It was meant to make people realize the ...

Book Report: “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair

Upton Sinclair’s book titled “The jungle” presents the author’s visionary ideas to the American society in 1906. Sinclair’s show of the life of struggle is evident through the characters Jurgis Rudkus and Ona. The two are a family, struggling to make ends meet in the suburbs of Chicago. The author presents the suffering which immigrants undergo, especially those who do not know much of English who are forced to take on various labor jobs that are barely enough to sustain their daily expenses. Mr. Rudkus and his family stayed lowly having found a job in the meat industry, ...

The progressives encompassed a wide range viewpoint to economic and social problems that cropped up because of fast industrialization and urbanization that began in late 19th century. Progressivism began a social movement to address social needs but later grew into full-fledged reform movement. The early progressives varied depending with the cause they championed. The progressives were individuals and organizations that were dedicated to overall society change. The changes they advocated included health care reforms, safer environment, workers welfare, quality education, immigrant’s welfare, efficient workplace, good leadership and increase public participation in democratic processes. They viewed the equity amongst all people ...

Background Information

The Muckrakers refer to a network of investigative journalists that set out to expose the corruption and abuse of power by state officials around the beginning of the twentieth century. The name ‘muckraker’ became popular after it was cited from a speech delivered by President Theodore Roosevelt in which he agreed with the course of the muckrakers but criticized some of the means that they resorted to in achieving their objective. Muckrakers played a significant role in shaping the attitude of the people towards large American businesses. It is argued that some muckrakers derived inspiration out of the trust-busting activities of ...

This essay is about Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. The terrifying yet funny contents of this book entails about the fast food industry where Eric Schlosser visits the laboratory where fast foods were being made. This book also entails about the explanation where the meats on your burger really comes from and how those fries smell very enticing and tastes so good. This essay will also compare and contrast Schlosser's Fast Food Nation with Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. The paper will not just provide lists of common and uncommon things between these two books, but the research will go ...

Upton Sinclair’s novel “The Jungle” goes deeper than a simple expose of the meat packing industry, Sinclair’s real goal was to provide an in-depth expose of society itself. By analyzing the socialist messages within “The Jungle” the corruption of capitalism and fallacy of the “American Dream” reveal the seedy underbelly of society and the unsanitary / unsafe working conditions of the Industrial Revolution.

The Unsanitary Working Conditions of “The Jungle”

Meatpacking was still a relatively new concept at the time “The Jungle” was written. Meatpacking became an established business venture only after the end of the Civil War and only a few major companies participated in the ...

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is a fictional story illustrating the lives of immigrants in the United States. It depicts the struggle between the rich and the poor which was ever growing in the industrial town of Chicago. It showed the plight of immigrant workers that were desperately trying to achieve the American dream which they had heard before leaving their native countries. “The Jungle” acts as a social political documentary of the American industrial growth by offering a peak Chicago meatpacking industry that was linked to corruption and dishonest practices in the early 20th century. The key character of this ...

Upton Sinclair’s novel “The Jungle” goes deeper than a simple expose of the meat packing industry; Sinclair’s real goal was to provide an in-depth expose of society itself. Likewise ‘Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser provides a more modern portrayal of the working class their struggle to survive in our times while their peers often live in excess. By analyzing the socialist messages within “The Jungle” and “Fast Food Nation” the corruption of capitalism and fallacy of the “American Dream” reveal the seedy underbelly of society.

The Desperation of the Working Class

Sinclair states that, “Packinghouse workers were ‘rats in a trap,’ that prostitutes fared better ...

The State of Workers' Welfare in the Early 20th Century

On March 25, 1911, a fire started at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City, and proved to be one of the most deadly and destructive industrial disasters to occur in the city to date. Nearly 150 people died of fire, smoke inhalation, or jumping out of the buildings, creating a substantial and horrifying loss of life that shed light on a number of labor abuses that were happening in early 20th century America (p. 638). Much of this was focused on newly arriving immigrants who were not being taken care of properly; the publishing of the book The Jungle by ...

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle

Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle, covers numerous subjects centered on life in Chicago, focusing on the corruption and collusion rampant during those years between industries such as the meatpackers, the politicians, and criminal underground. It describes the squalid and hopeless living conditions of working-class families, especially the immigrants, the fights and failures of unions, and presents an alternative and negative view of capitalism as well as arguments for socialism. The book became a best seller but not for the reasons Sinclair hoped, its socialist message overshadowed by the graphic and sickening descriptions of working conditions in the meat ...