The Jungle

Upton Sinclair’s extraordinary novel THE JUNGLE transformed a nation, perhaps, more than any other in American literary history. The plight of the working poor (especially of immigrants), the horrendously unsanitary conditions of meatpacking plants, and the political corruption of American cities became an almost immediate national concern. Set in Chicago and the beginning of the twentieth century, the novel depicts the lives of Eastern European immigrants who eke out a living in the packing plants, the stockyards, and the tenements of the city. Sinclair’s descriptions of the lives they endured and the conditions under which they worked alarmed the reading public. After a White House meeting with President Theodore Roosevelt, a federal investigation commission was instituted, leading to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drugs Act, both in 1906. The latter eventually led to today’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA).Upton Sinclair (1868-1968) wrote more than ninety novel but no other with the impact of THE JUNGLE. Though others were quite successful (DRAGON’S TEETH was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for 1943, and OIL! was the basis for the 2007 film THERE WILL BE BLOOD), he will eternally be known first as the author of THE JUNGLE.