Upton Beall Sinclair was born September 20, 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland.

He was an
only child of a father who sold a lot of different stuff from liquor, hat, and etc. and his
wife who lived poorly. Sinclair graduated from the New York City College in 1897
entering at only fourteen years old, after graduating he attended Colombia University to
study law. Sinclair was one of the most important writers of the 1900’s because of the
politics and business he would write about. One of his more important novels was “The
Jungle “which talked about the working conditions in a meat-packing industry. In result
of him writing this novel he helped improve the working conditions. Upton later died on
November 25,1968.

The Jungle talks about a Lithuanian family immigrating to Chicago in wanting a better
life and finding work. The couple of Jurgis Rudkus and Ona Lukoszaitae were the family
coming to find work, while Jurgis was quick to find work in a meatpacking industry with
some of his family members. After working for a good amount of time and confident with
their wages they decided to purchase a home as a family, but soon realizing the home
came with hidden fees that they couldn’t understand because of the low knowledge of
knowing any English . Ona ended up going out to get a job in the meatpacking industry
as well, while everything went good for a good amount of time, once the winter came
things started to go downhill because of the work slowing down and the family getting
paid less. Despite the loss of a loved one, Ona gave birth to a healthy child, but right
when the summer came along they all went to go back to work to produce for the family
again.

Jurgais later discovers that Ons’s boss Conner has been raping her and forced her into
brothel a couple of times. Jurgis losses it and immediately finds Conner and beats him,
after all of this Jurgis is put in to jail for about thirty days for aggravated assault. After
Jurgis gets released from jail, he finds out that his family has been evicted from their
house and his wife Ona was sick with their child, sadly Ona and the child were not able
to survive the illness. Not letting the death put him down Jurgis finds a new job to
support his child and the rest of the family, with no luch Jurgis eventually leaves
Chicago and becomes a tramp for the rest of that summer. Coming back to Chicago he
becomes a crime worker for a political boss to be able to support himself, which feel
apart when he ran into Conner again and gets put back to jail, he pays his bail and runs
to the other side of Chicago. He attends a socialist speech to get out of the cold but the
message triggers Jurgis, after hearing the speech he hopes himself for a better future
for himself in socialism.

The main location of “The Jungle” took place in Chicago, Illinois. Packingtown is
Chicago’s meatpacking district in the 1900’s. The family traveled to Packingtown, Illinois
which was the Chicago main places for the meat-packing. Packingtown was the main
place to find work in Chicago and that’s where the family decided to go. Chicago was
also the main place in where the family bought their home.