Upton Sinclair

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is a very interesting novel. I read this book in my dual credit history class my sophomore year and I remember being very shocked by the information in it. Chapter 9 tells us about the horrible conditions of the meat-packing industry in the 1900’s. It talks about the diseased cattle, which is where the meat comes from and the deception of the people who thought the meat was healthy because there was so called inspectors in the factories. Sinclair also talks about the horrible conditions the workers are faced with and how men could fall into the traps where the scraps go and become part of the canned food and no one would even know which is disgusting! This chapter also talks about the unfair voting regulations back then and how people wanted to win so bad they would buy votes from people. Overall, I think this is an interesting book that everyone should read. It is very eye-opening and it makes you grateful (or hopeful) that we don’t have to deal with conditions like these in today’s industries.