The Jungle
Categories: Literature & Fiction
Upton Sinclair's novel, serialized in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason in 1905 and issued in book form in 1906, follows the Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus and his family in Chicago's Packingtown. Brutal work in the meatpacking plants, swindles, debt, illness and corruption wear down Jurgis, his wife, Ona, and her cousin Marija. Sinclair meant to win sympathy for workers, but readers fixed on contaminated meat, and the outcry helped bring about the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act.
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- Martha Stewart: “Upton Sinclair, I loved all his books. So much fun reading him. It's kind of old-fashioned to say that, but it isn't old-fashioned. Everybody should read those books if you can.”