It tells the story of an idealistic Lithuanian immigrant working for a fictional meat-processing company who loses his family, job, home and health in a succession of calamities before finding hope in socialism. Titled The Jungle as a metaphor for capitalism, Sinclair’s novel originally appeared in monthly installments between February and November 1905 in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason. For seven weeks, the 26-year-old writer and devout socialist investigated the dangerous and oppressive working conditions endured by what he called “the wage slaves of the Beef Trust.” Donning grimy clothes and carrying a dinner pail to sneak into Chicago’s “Packingtown,” a dense complex of stockyards, feed lots, slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants, Sinclair was horrified by what he saw.
Two years earlier, in the fall of 1904, Sinclair had boarded a train to Chicago in search of material for his Great American Novel. With its stomach-turning depictions of the stockyards and slaughterhouses, the book lit a new fire under the pure food movement and inspired swift passage of landmark food safety laws. When Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906, the novel became an instant sensation, exposing the horrifying conditions in America’s meat-processing industry.
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