Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle'

Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle published in 1906 marked a very critical moment is U.S. history. The book became an instant best seller and immediately brought change due to public outcry. It was an important turning point in United States history because it exposed the disgusting and careless way the meat was handled in meat companies around the United States. This book led to the result of two major legislations being passed. The Jungle not only affected the United States domestically but also internationally.
In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair wrote from the viewpoint of a teenage immigrant from Lithuania. Sinclair showed the extreme measures of how meat would be supplied to consumers no matter how old it was due to the fear of losing any amount of profit. Many times, the meat would be sitting on dirty floors and wouldn’t be cleaned. Many workers had their limbs cut off and mixed in the meat due to the bad machinery and rather than throwing that portion of the meat out the people over …show more content…
Upton Sinclair personally sent President Theodore Roosevelt a copy of The Jungle. After reading the book the book Roosevelt felt obligated to take action and find out if the instances from this book were truly happening so he sent inspectors to check these slaughterhouses out, and sure enough many of the things said in the books were soon proven to be true. This led to the United States government being pressured to fix this atrocity and quickly because not only were meat sales in the States cut to an all-time low, but international sales were also cut down by half. Foreign countries looked down on the united states meat industry and wouldn’t dare buy exported meat from them. Congress quickly passed The Pure Food and Drug Act and The Meat Inspection Act. These laws were made to ensure that companies didn’t provide anything that was considered harmful to eat and that meat was slaughtered under sanitary