Upton Sinclair - The Jungle

UPTON SINCLAIR (1878-1968) was an American political activist, journalist, and novelist. In 1904, Sinclair spent weeks in disguise, working undercover in Chicago’s meatpacking plants to research his exposé, The Jungle. 


The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s landmark novel, changed the United States forever: it detailed the deplorable practices followed by the meat packing industry and the horrific working conditions of its laborers. 


Published in 1906, The Jungle sent shockwaves throughout the United States that resulted in cries for labor and agricultural reforms, and is widely credited with arousing so much public outrage that Congress quickly passed the first Pure Food and Drug Act, and the Meat Inspection Act, watersheds in consumer protection and government legislation.


This story of the immigrant experience in the hellish Chicago stockyards stands as a classic of twentieth-century American literature and social protest.