While the novel took inspiration from Sinclair’s experiences in what was coined Packingtown in Chicago, The Jungle is still advertised as fiction as it reflects his views on the industry. Sinclair’s descriptions and depictions of meat as diseased, rotten, and mixed in with animals and human appendages disturbed the public country-wide, influencing the government to enforce federal laws supporting health code standards and food safety expectations.
While this book was set in Chicago, this story was applicable to every meat packing factory in the US as this was a standard due to lack of regulations and health department intervention. The Jungle, written in 1906, was an exposé on the working conditions of the meat packing industry in the United States. As stated by the Social Security Administration, Upton Sinclair was highly praised-specifically by Edmund Wilson-saying: “Practically alone among the American writers of his generation, Sinclair put to the American public the fundamental questions raised by capitalism in such a way that they could not escape them” (Social Security History). Even though The Jungle drew attention towards industry in America, Sinclair also wrote about a variety of issues and covered international events. While Sinclair wasn’t initially aiming to influence the Food and Drug Administration, his honest and at times revolting depictions of the industry and its sanitary conditions was one of the driving factors for the implementation of the Pure Food and Drug Act (Social Security History).
Arguably his most famous novel, The Jungle is a book that was written as a scandalous report exposing the meat packing industry in Chicago. Sinclair was a self-proclaimed socialist who focused on journalism and literary realism as a journalist, Sinclair was known for his muckraking pieces meant to expose working conditions and the lives of the poor and working class in America. Author of The Jungle (1906), Upton Sinclair was a famous American writer and social revolutionary from California.
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