In the text it states “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 was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner..” (Sinclair ).
The main character Jurgis saw men in the pickling room with skin diseases. Men who using knives on assembly lines would lose fingers and men who carried 100-pound blocks of meat destroyed their bodies. Workers with tuberculosis suffered and spit blood right on the floor. Bathrooms with no soap and water would be right next to the place where the meat was getting processed if there was even a bathroom and workers would urinate anywhere. Lunchrooms were scarce, and workers ate where they worked.
This raised the eyebrows of many readers when Sinclair showed the sanitary conditions of the meat and it even reached the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt and acted by signing the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. The book had a significant impact politically and socially that has not been established since the infamous book Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the early 1850s. Not only did Mr.Sinclair expose the …show more content…
However, it brought a public breakout and they reacted with outrage about the filthy and fake meat but ignored the condition of the workers. Meat sales skyrocketed to the bottom.Sinclair also noted that "I aimed at the public 's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach." The Government started to receive a boatload of mail and receiving calls to reform the meat-packing industry. President Roosevelt also brought Sinclair to the White House for a discussion. He also sent out a special commission to investigate Chicago 's factories. The special reported in May 1906. The report revealed almost all the horrific scenes that Sinclair had written about. The commissioners witnessed a hog that fell part way into a toilet. Workers took the body out and did not bother to clean it while putting it on a hook with the others on the assembly line.The commissioners blasted current meat-inspection laws that required only confirming the healthfulness of animals at the time of slaughter. The commissioners suggested that inspections take place at every stage of the processing of meat. They also reported for the secretary of agriculture to make rules requiring the cleanliness and of animal products .Upton Sinclair raised awareness to the labor industry, and exposing a revolting meat-packing industry that made Americans sick to their stomachs. According to the