Upton sinclair the jungle biography

When Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906, the novel became an instant sensation, exposing the horrifying conditions in America’s meat-processing industry. With its stomach-turning depictions of the stockyards and slaughterhouses, the book lit a new fire under the pure food movement and inspired swift passage of landmark food safety laws.

Two years earlier, in the fall of 1904, Sinclair had boarded a train to Chicago in search of material for his Great American Novel.

For seven weeks, the 26-year-old writer and devout socialist investigated the dangerous and oppressive working conditions endured by what he called “the wage slaves of the Beef Trust.” Donning grimy clothes and carrying a dinner pail to sneak into Chicago’s “Packingtown,” a dense complex of stockyards, feed lots, slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants, Sinclair was horrified by what he saw.

Titled The Jungle as a metaphor for capitalism, Sinclair’s novel originally appeared in monthly installments between