Sausage Anyone?
What do you get when you combine late 19th century Socialist rhetoric, low skilled, overworked immigrant labor, unsanitary factory meat, and a muckraking author? Why…you get a whole bag of new government regulations…and a classic novel…
Upton Sinclair was a Socialist. He emerged from that generation of Americans who watched as surging immigration to the U.S. created an environment for cheap labor, labor that could be exploited by the wealthy. Low wages, long hours, unsafe working conditions and child labor were all hallmarks of this “Gilded Age” that sat right on the cusp of a new century. Sinclair, like many, didn’t like what he saw, and he decided to do something about it…
Upton went undercover…he posed as a lowly worker, and experienced the injustices of the factory first-hand, as well as what was really going into the sausage. He wrote about his big adventure, and serialized it for the Socialist rag, Appeal To Reason…then he published it as a book in 1906. Sinclair changed the course of a nation. His book brought reform and awareness to the way our meat was handled and processed. Even President Theodore Roosevelt, who was no fan of Upton and his Socialist viewpoints, took action after reading The Jungle and commissioned an in depth study of what was exposed in the book. As a direct consequence to Sinclair’s work, the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed and the Bureau of Chemistry was established. While not totally responsible, Sinclair’s book seems to have been the final push over the ledge, opening the gates wide for government regulation when it came foodstuffs.
I guess our sausage is now safe to eat…or is it?
You can obtain a 1906 first edition of Sinclair’s book here:
There appears to be some controversy surrounding what was included in the book as opposed to the Appeal To Reason articles. Recent editions of The Jungle claim to be more complete, or more authentic, because they have drawn from the series that was published in the paper. I tend to think that the book, as it was first published, is just fine. Sinclair’s message was heard loud and clear, and the published book brought about change, maybe not the changes in labor conditions that the novel showcases, but gastronomically, it sure did the job…
Perhaps later editions are merely trying to capitalize on the author, and make money off the backs of the workers, the proletariat, our brothers and sisters...Workers of the World unite against the evils of latent capitalist book publishers!
So much for the sausage…