The Jungle – Depicted as a Failure to Me
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The 20th century brought the world technological advancement and opportunity. New inventions such as the automobile, telephones, and mechanization of factories created an America of industry and big business. But behind this mask of wealth was a bitter truth, one of despair and crushed dreams. Immigrants, particularly from Eastern Europe, were living in filth as the wealthy were securing more money. Almost all immigrant families were forced to live in suffocating buildings and many starved within a year of their coming. The factory work was horrifying, almost all workers eventually caught a disease or were worn down by the process of “wage slavery.” Upton Sinclair, a famous muckraker (journalist who exposes misconduct in society), exposed the truths of this hidden world to the public in The Jungle: “It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together” (Sinclair 148). This novel was written for the purposes of bringing to the eyes of the American people the exploitation of immigrant workers, unsanitary conditions in factories, and the theory of socialism. However, as only one of these goals truly inspired the public to act, the novel should be considered a failure.
Big business, a theory that began with the success of industrialism, effectively controlled the population in the early 1900″”s. Businesses were able to control public opinion through newspapers and also through their own workers. However, as business competition increased, the need for skilled labor decreased due to mechanization. This led to an increase of pressure on the laborers to find employment. Mechanization was
built on two key factors: innovation and efficiency. It was a period in which most factories were transformed into efficient, critical warehouses of mass-production. Companies no longer had a need for skilled labor, only for labor that was repetitive and unceasing. This hurried mass production, of course, led to hazardous and unhealthy conditions. The general public tended to believe in the system because it seemed to represent progress, producing an abundance of cheap goods that seemed to be raising everyones standard of living. The gullible public believed the companies”” advertising, which, as a new art form, presented only the positive aspects of modern industrial production and ignored what was truthfully happening. Corruption became rampant throughout all aspects of industry: “The officials who ruled it, and got all the graft, had to be elected first; and so there were two rival sets of grafters, known as political parties, and the one got the office which bought the most votes.” (Sinclair 101). Wealthy packinghouse owners controlled nearly all aspects of life in industrial cities, such as Chicago. They were able to buy votes through the immigrants and had a hold on the police as well. As an immigrant, one could merely work for the meat packers or become their enemy, a position that would almost always be deadly.
The meat-packing business, one of the larger industries, grew rapidly in the beginning of the 20th century due to railway transportation (with refrigerator cars), mechanization of factories, and the more efficient use of animal by-products. This rapid industrial growth led to a declining meat quality, because big businesses aimed to get the maximum production from the minimum investment in labor and materials. A general competition evolved between corporations in which the company which was able to
produce the most efficiently would make the most profit. This led to a downward spiral in food quality and an overall disregard for the welfare of the American people. Contributing to this decline was a practice in which scientists were hired by corporations to doctor meat (chemically altering food to make it seem healthy), producing a deadly product. However, as The Jungle exposed these exploits and stirred general unrest, the government went into action. The Heyburn Bill (1906) was the first major federal consumer law, prohibiting the selling of contaminated meat. Soon after were the Meat Inspection Act (1906) and the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), which further regulated food quality: “The Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act were together the strongest regulations Congress had ever imposed on the food industry” (Tompkins 98). Both laws were enforced by the Department of Agriculture and improved the general health of the public. The joint progress of the President and the Congress in both of these laws showed