Question

What was the actual impact and historical significance of the meat/food industry brought about by The Jungle by Upton SInclair?

Answer 1

The jungle was written at a time when the U.S. was at the throes of industrialization. Working class immigrants to the U.S. had limited employment choices outside of factory jobs with often terrible working conditions. Sinclair wanted to expose these conditions to a wider American public, hoping that an appeal to readers' emotions might spark a change. When The Jungle was published, its readers were outraged- but not in the way Sinclair had hope. Their primary concern was food quality rather than the dangerous labor practices and cruel treatment of animals that Sinclair sought to expose. Using the public's reaction to the novel, U.S. President Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass both the Pure Food Drug Act, which ensured that meatpacking plants processed their products in a sanitary manner, and the Meat Inspection Act, which required that the U.S. Department of Agriculture inspect all livestock before slaughter. And because of the public outrage and the bills being passed the conditions in American slaughterhouses were improved.

The book sheds light on the Industry standards. The industry standards were limited,and decrepit and these had direct impact on the animals and workers, the hands of the men in the slaughterhouse would be criss-crossed with cuts until you could no longer pretend to count, their nails had been worn off from pulling the hides. The conditions of men and animals at times in the slaughter houses were at parallel. The workers were penned up in filthy houses and left to rot and stew in misery and this sounded much like the conditions of the animals too. Sure there was the facade of inspection. The government inspector who checks the slaughtered pigs for signs of tuberculosis often lets several carcass go unchecked. Spoiled meat is especially doctored in secret before it is scattered among the rest of the meat in preparation for canning and packing. Sinclair's description of the unsanitary and disgusting practices of the meat packing industry highlights the lack of sanitation the factories and the practice of selling diseased and rotten meat to the American Households.The most spoiled of meat became sausages. Men welcomed tuberculosis in the cattle which they were feeding because it made them fatten more quickly. A plant killed meat for canning and it killed cattle which were old, crippled and diseased. There were cattle which had been fed with' whisky malt ' the residual of breweries and were covered with boils. A good part of the public bought for lamb and mutton was goat's meat. All manner of dishonesty exists in the industry's willingness to sell diseased, rotten and adulterated meat.The animals were used mercilessly for almost everything. The hooves were used to make hair-pins and the development of gelatin.There was not a single part of any animal that would not be industriously employed. The factory owners valued their profits over the health of the workers and the consumers. There was corruption deeply embedded in the factory system. Women, men, children worked grueling hours for paltry wages. The corrupt owners of the vast meatpacking empire betrayed the values of American Dream in every way possibel.The unsuspecting workers were herald into the machinery of capitalism and slaved en masse.