School Craft College

The Impact of Upton Sinclairs The Jungle

Emily Sergent
History 153
Professor Kimberly Lark
07/15/2015

Upton Sinclair will forever be known as the man who changed our standard of
living. He wrote The Jungle, which portrays the working conditions and quality of a meet
packaging company in Chicago. What peaked his interest in this subject was the Meat
Cutters Strike in 1904. 56,000 members demanded that the Beef Trust grant a uniform
wage to all workers in their plants throughout the country.1 The strike ended up
collapsing within the year. By September of 1904, Sinclair had taken a room in Chicago
to study the stockyards. He found the meat packaging companies did whatever they could
to cut costs. As stated by Upton:
The meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling
would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one there were things that went into
the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit. There was no place for
the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of
washing them in the water that was ladled into the sausage. There were the butt-ends of
smoked meat, and the scraps of corned beef, and all the odds and ends of the waste of the
plants, that would be dumped into old barrels in the cellar and left there. Under the
system of rigid economy, which the packers enforced, there were some jobs that it only
paid to do once in a long time, and among these was the cleaning out of the waste barrels.
Every spring they did it; and in the barrels would be dirt and rust and old nails and stale
water and cartload after cartload of it would be taken up and dumped into the hoppers
with fresh meat, and sent out to the publics breakfast2

1 Sinclair, Upton. Works of Upton Sinclair: The Jungle: Its Place in American History

and Literature. MacMillan General Reference, 1963.

2 Sincalir, Upton. The Jungle. Page 131

The false labeling of food was alarming. There were hams that were spoiled,
which then were pickled and sold as Grade Three ham to consumers. After discovering
how to remove the bone, which removed most of the smell, all ham was labeled as
Grade One ham or ham of the highest quality possible.
Not only did companies disregard quality, they also didnt care about their
workers. Workers would lose fingers from working with acid, they would fall into the
vats and be crushed, and the space was crampt and smelled like rotting flesh 3. Workers
were forced to work a minimum of 11 hours a day. When they had gone out on strike,
the packers would use illegal methods to break the strike 4
When the Jungle was published, it became a major success. Sinclair became one of the
first celebrities of his time. Sinclair is also accreted for the creation of the Food Safety
and Inspection Service. Following the release of Sinclairs book the Food and drug act
was passed by congress. President Roosevelt signed this act on June 30th, 1906. This act
also included the Meat Inspection Amendment. This amendment [prohibits] the
misbranding of any foodstuff or pharmaceutical offered for sale or their adulteration
by any ingredient not specified on the label. It also explained that an adulterated food is a
food containing any added poisonous or other added deleterious ingredient which may
render such article injurious to health, later being revised to remove the term added

3 History 152 M3: Progressives Progressive Citizens
4 Sinclair, Upton. Works of Upton Sinclair: The Jungle: Its Place in American History

and Literature. MacMillan General Reference, 1963.

from the definition and gave a distinct separate designation to substances or toxicant
added or non-added.5
Though Sinclairs aim was to promote an ideal socialism and better the conditions
for workers, he actually created a food revolution. The publics eyes were open to the
grotesque practices the food companies were taking and they were appalled. The Center
for Disease Control explains how vital Sinclairs findings were to saving the lives and
health of the population;
In 1900, the incidence of typhoid fever was approximately 100 per 100,000
population; by 1920, it had decreased to 33.8, and by 1950, to 1.7. During the 1940s,
studies of autopsied muscle samples showed that 16% of persons in the United States had
trichinellosis; 300-400 cases were diagnosed every year, and 10-20 deaths occurred.
Since then, the rate of infection has declined markedly; from 1991 through 1996, three
deaths and an average of 38 cases per year were reported. 6
The Federal Meat Inspection Act changed the inspection procedures, and
impacted the public which consumes the meat on a daily basis. Before FIMA was passed,
inspectors would use their instincts to inspect the meat being shipped out. The FMIA
requires inspection of animals before slaughter, and specific inspection instructions after
death. FIMA also set a standard of mandatory sanitary expectations and allowed the

5 Neal Fortin, Chapter 1: Introduction to Food Regulation in the United

States:January 2008.
6 United States, Center for Disease Control, Achievements in Public Health, 1990-
1999: Safer and Healthier Foods.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4840a1.htm

USDA to issue grants of inspection and monitor slaughter and processing operations,
enabling the Department to enforce food safety regulatory requirements. 7
It is said that one person cannot change the world but Upton Sinclair disproved
that theory. He single handedly investigated, reported, and changed the way meat is
processed and handled. He also shed light on the working conditions of the employed,
which did affect the power of labor unions. While we still have some issues with food
safety today, one man drastically help decrease the death and illness rate from food born
illnesses.

7 United States, United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Outlook:

Economic Research Service, The Livestock Sector.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/fsis-content/fsis-questionable-
content/celebrating-100-years-of-fmia/overview/ct_index

Work Cited
Fortin, Neal D. Food Regulation: Law, Science, Policy, and Practice. N.p.: n.p., 2009.
Print.
HIST 153: Contemporary America - US History: M3 Progressive Citizens
Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. N.p.: n.p., 1905. 131-32. Print.
Sinclair, Upton. Works of Upton Sinclair: The Jungle: Its Place in American History and
Literature. MacMillan General Reference, 1963.
United States, Center for Disease Control, Achievements in Public Health, 1990-1999:
Safer and Healthier Foods.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4840a1.htm
United States, United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Outlook: Economic
Research Service, The Livestock Sector.
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/fsis-content/fsis-questionablecontent/celebrating-100-years-of-fmia/overview/ct_index