Q&A

I have been flooded with a bunch questions from readers and I have decided to answer them. Don’t complain if it’s not the answer you were looking for. Be happy I even decided to make one of these.

Q- Who are you?

A- A person, obviously. In order to hide my identity, I can’t reveal anything, but it doesn't matter. Therefore, who I am is irrelevant.

Q- Is it legal for you to be posting all this private information onto the Internet?

A- Probably not.

Q- Why are your posts so long?

A- Because I wanted to make them long.

Q- I’m confused. Can you explain what the purpose of this is again?

A- Gladly. I wanted to investigate how the FDA came about. Like what influenced the change in the food industry. So I looked at numerous sources and they all led to The Jungle. The blog is just something extra. I needed somewhere to share the information I had.

Q- Are you single?

A- I’m not answering that one.

Q- What’s The Jungle?

A- ...I’m not answering that one either.

Okay, that’s it. Hope that satisfied everyone. Goodbye.

Farewell, Comrades

I enjoyed taking the time to investigate how a book like The Jungle impacted society and introduced more government involvement in the food industry.  This was a learning experience for me as I was able to do research in my leisure while sharing it with you guys.  I assume that the majority of you are readers of The Jungle and were seeking more information about its validity.  I hope that I was able to open your mind or teach you something new about The Jungle. 

Video

Hey everyone, Pseudonym here. I just found this video of historians explaining The Jungle. It relates the novel to the reality of the meatpacking industry. But, beware. If you are squeamish, do not bother. The video may upset your stomach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxe9nosWawM

Is The Jungle Realistic? ...Yes, It Is

 

As I continue to research this topic and read more on The Jungle, I witness a great controversy taking place between the audiences. We inevitably see the impact that the novel made on our society with the quick action that Roosevelt took resulting in the formation of the FDA. However, we also see that some people question the accuracy of Sinclair’s depictions made in the novel. As Lawrence W. Reed states, the novel “was intended to be a polemic- a diatribe, if you will- not a well-researched and dispassionate documentary.” This author argues that Sinclair exaggerates the unsanitary conditions of the meatpacking industries and that he, “relied heavily both on his own imagination and on the hearsay of others.” Reading this article, I am unsure of whether I agree or disagree with Reed because he is correct in the argument that The Jungle is a fictional book. As I have stated before in my last post, Sinclair did create a character and a life modeled loosely after his own. The Rudkus family and the hardships, experiences, and pain they witnessed were a creation of Sinclair’s imagination. However, a point made by Reed is inaccurate based on my research. He stated the Sinclair had not gone to the meatpacking industry, and had not first-hand seen the claims he later made in his novel. The letter that Sinclair sent to president Roosevelt, in an older post, proves this statement to be incorrect when he states, in the letter, “I saw with my own eyes hams, which had been spoiled in pickle, being pumped full of chemicals to destroy the odor. I saw waste ends of smoked beef stored in a barrel~in a cellar, in a condition of filth which I could not describe in a letter… room in which sausage meat was with poisoned rats lying around.”. Therefore, although this author is correct in the aspect of the use of imagination by Sinclair to create the novel, he is incorrect in that Sinclair did, in fact, witness the horrors of meatpacking industries.

Reed also questions why a single novel, conditions only read and not seen, outweighed the the great number of people who have actually gone in the meat packing factories and seen the way it works. As a reader, I am not sure how to answer that myself. This will be a question I will never cease to remember. The fact that so many people saw the factories and did nothing is an act of no explanation. My only assumption would be that the factory’s conditions became the accepted way of living. Overall, it is evident that Lawrence W. Reed is questioning the accuracy of The Jungle, but if anyone reads this article, they must keep in mind that some points are correct, but others can be proven to be wrong.

President Teddy Roosevelt

The Parallels of Upton Sinclair's Life and Jurgis Rudkus's Life

Although I started out my blog with the curiosity of the creation of the FDA, I couldn’t help but wonder about the author Upton Sinclair after completing The Jungle. I wondered what had inspired him to write a novel that strongly expresses the various problems of our time. Therefore, I began to read about the life of Upton Sinclair and discovered there were a variety of life experiences that inspired him to write the novel. I used the link above to gain the information I write about in this post.

    Upton Sinclair, born on September 20, 1878, witnessed class differences from a young age. His family lived a life of penury because of his alcoholic father, whereas his mother’s side of the family lived a wealthy life. Sinclair later claimed that these experiences of regularly switching between classes was one of the reasons he became a Socialist. After reading this information, I can understand that his interest on this topic was started before he even realized it although people that Sinclair later met, such as Leonard Dalton Abbott, influenced him and turned him towards socialism. Sinclair also read books by a number of authors who supported socialism such as, Karl Marx, Edward Bellamy, Frank Norris, and Robert Blatchford, that, along with the experiences that shaped him as a person, he wrote the novel, The Jungle. Although the novel was rejected by six publishers, it became very popular when it was published, even grabbing the attention of the president, Theodore Roosevelt.

    As I read about Sinclair’s life in this article, I realized that his life and the life of the fictional character in the novel, Jurgis, have numerous similarities and differences. The article stated Sinclair’s living conditions in the years he was growing up with the constant view of economic inequality in his life.  This relates to the Jurgis’s life when he comes to America and is forced to live a life of extreme poverty.  Jurgis sees the class differences among the people he goes to work with everyday and the men desperately looking for jobs versus the heads of the companies in the stockyards. The situation in where Jurgis is invited to Master Freddie’s house and is given a one hundred dollar bill relates greatly to the different lives that Sinclair experienced between his family members because it was explained in the novel that the rich Master Freddie gave away hundred dollar bills like they were nothing, and the view of Master Freddie’s house left Jurgis amazed. This alone shows how similar Jurgis and Sinclair truly are. On another note, the strong socialist ideology that formed in both Sinclair and Jurgis is also very similar. The life that both went through resulted in them strongly opposing capitalism and supporting socialism.

    To explain the differences in the two people, the main distinction is the difference in education. Sinclair, who went to college at the age of fourteen, got a proper education, whereas Jurgis did not get that opportunity. Also, another substantial difference is the fact that Jurgis spent most of this life unaware of socialist values and was introduced to them later in his life. On the other hand, Sinclair, exposed to the values and beliefs of a socialist early in his life, wrote The Jungle to reflect his strong opinions. Reading this article truly intrigued me more about this author when I realized how similar the author made the main character to be.

Pure Food and Drug Act

The Letter that Told the President of the United States What to Do

Pseudonym here. I recently came across this letter to President Theodore from Upton Sinclair dated March 10, 1906, regarding the issue on how to handle federal government investigations in the food industry. This letter was the start of many more to come between the two. For the sake of saving space, I only enclosed the first page of the letter, but one can find the full letter in the National Archives and Records Administration. In the letter, Upton Sinclair describes how bribery is a common practice in the meat-packing industry and gives advice to President Roosevelt on how to solve this issue.

Sinclair adds in his letter on how an employee of Armour & Company, responded to his request to show another journalist, Ray Stannard Baker, around in the factory. Armour & Company is one of America’s meat-packing companies based in Chicago for those who don’t know what it is. The employee responded, “He will have to be well disguised, for 'the lid is on' in Packingtown; he will find two detectives in places where before there was only one.” Once The Jungle was published and read, a variety of journalists wanted to go undercover to discover what Sinclair had discovered. To assuage the public, Mr. Philip D. Armour, one of the founders of Armour & Company, stated in Saturday Evening Post, “In Armour and Company’s business not one atom of any condemned animal or carcass, finds its way, directly or indirectly, from any source, into any food product or food ingredient.” However, in the 6th page of his letter, Sinclair states he has a statement from a man named Thomas F. Dolan, who is now the head of the Boston & Maine News Bureau. Previously, he was the superintendent in Armour’s plant. Thomas Dolan states in his affidavit that he made “an oath to Armour’s custom of taking condemned meat out of the bottom of the tanks, into which they had been dropped with the idea of rendering them into fertilizer. It seems that the tanks are built with a false bottom, which lets down on a hinge; and that when you stand at the top and see the meat dropped in, you are flooded by blinding clouds of steam…” Armour & Company paid Dolan $5,000 to write another one contradicting himself, but Dolan took the money and published the whole story in the Evening Journal. Typical.

In the beginning of the letter, Sinclair tells Roosevelt how he is glad the Department of Agriculture has taken up the issue of inspecting, or, according to Sinclair, “lack of one,” in the food industry. During his own undercover investigation, Sinclair has seen inspectors leave the factories, their heads turned the other way with false assurance on the quality of the meat. In the letter, Sinclair states, “A man has to be something of a detective, or else intimate with the workingmen, as I was, before he can really see what is going on.” In order for a man to see what really is going on inside the factories, he has to spend time as one of the workmen and just be “one of the guys.” Sinclair suggested that Roosevelt find a man whose “intelligence and integrity” he trusts, send him to Sinclair, and disclose all the occurrences he saw happen inside the meat-packing factories. Then the said man should go to Chicago and enlist as a worker in one of the factories to experience first-hand what the other workers are going through. Figuratively speaking, of course, for one to feel the pain, he must experience the pain. I have to give props to Sinclair for him to be able to tell the President of the United States on what to do with his country.

Upton Sinclair is One Passionate Man

Capitalism eats Jurgis and his family away until Jurgis’ last resort is to revert to Socialism.  Sinclair sends a message that capitalism is the root of all evils while depicting the realities of the food industry during the early twentieth century. The bitterness is expressed, not through the finer points of The Jungle, but the purpose of the book itself. Sinclair seldom takes advantage of the use of third person to criticize capitalism, but when he does, he blames the companies, not the government. He says, “They[businesses] own not merely the labor of society, they have bought the governments; and everywhere they use their raped and stolen power to intrench themselves in their privileges, to dig wider and deeper the channels through which the river of profits flows to them,” (Sinclair 306).  This quote demonstrates Sinclair’s belief that businesses extend their control over everything.  The government and common people are excluded, but necessary to rake in earnings for the companies.

In the introduction, by C. Michael Hurst, points out that “capitalism forecloses all intimacy” with examples of how Jurgis and Ona are separated due to the financial stress.  Because of Jurgis’ altercation with Ona’s boss, Sinclair manipulates the story so Jurgis is unable to find work and reports, “...he was blacklisted… He was condemned and sentenced, without trial and without appeal; he could never work for the packers again…” (Sinclair 196).  Jurgis is very unfortunate to be blacklisted.  He previously had been unable to find job openings and now after wasting his time to hear back from employers he had no chance at any of the plants or stockyards.  The crippling effects of capitalism are seen right before the readers’ eyes and are utilized to illustrate how duplicitous capitalism is.

Ostrinski is like a car salesman, trying to persuade Jurgis to join the Socialist movement.  He points out all of the flaws of the current situation in Chicago.  Ostrinski categorizes the capitalist nature as the Beef Trust and then recounts their corrupt activities to Jurgis.  The theft of city water, the obstruction of the courts in their favor, the hindrance of the mayor’s decisions, the distortion of files from the government, and the infraction of numerous laws were delineated to Jurgis (Sinclair 316).  Without Ostrinski, Jurgis would not know why he was joining the Socialist movement.  Sinclair’s depiction of the horrible events in Packingtown is his conviction of the Socialist principles.

Hidden in the Jungle, Concealed in the Jungle

As a new agent at the Food and Drug Administration, I will be giving you full coverage into what inspired regulations in the food industry while I discover them myself. In order to conceal my identity, I will be taking the name Pseudonym in order to avoid any troubles that could occur. It was said that The Jungle "aimed for the public's heart, and by accident hit it in the stomach." So how did this novel provoke such a change?  Upton Sinclair, described as a muckraker by President Teddy Roosevelt, shares his views in an unfiltered way. Join me on this journey as I uncover the secrets and discover new documents from the past.

                                                                              -Pseudonym