Why was Upton Sinclair so important?

Answer 1

Upton Sinclairs' father was an alcoholic liquor salesman who could barley provide for his family. However Sinclair had wealthy grandparents and he spent a considerable amount of time with them.

This gave him insight on how both the rich and poor lived during the late 19th century. Personally experiencing the contrasts between wealth and poverty affected him and highly influenced his novels.

Answer 2

Upton Sinclair had written over a dozen books in his lifetime. However, the only book people remember him by was "The Jungle". It was about the unsanitary conditions of a meat packaging plant in Chicago, IL. Though he was a great writer, his pictures did most of the talking for him. He wrote about how human limbs and rats would fall into the meat grinder and would be shipped out anyway and nobody thought anything of it. After President Theodore Roosevelt read it, he passed the Pure Food & Drug Act of 1906 making it illegal for meat to be under a certain grade.

Answer 3

In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair exposed the poor working conditions of the meat-packing industry. Here is a short caption from The Jungle:

There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption [tuberculosis] germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms;...and thousands of rats would race about on it...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 the rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together.

Answer 4

He published "The jungle" which led to the creation of the FDA,

exposing unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry.

Answer 5

Excerpt from The Jungle

Upton Sinclair

Answer 6

meat packing industry :)

Answer 7

meatpacking industry!