Reaction To Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

670 Words3 Pages
My initial reaction to reading this excerpt from Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” was one of awe, with a hand over my mouth for the better part of the reading. There is also a side of me that is not so surprised by any of it. The more I learn of our country’s history where government and business are concerned, the more I realize that the almighty dollar, greed, the pursuit of power, and a total disregard for average Americans and their welfare seems to be the order of operations. Upton Sinclair, a self-made success and man of meager beginnings, most likely championed such a crusade against the meat packing industry, as well as the government because of his impoverished upbringing, which would have given him first-hand knowledge and experience…show more content…
Cattle were often left dead and rotting among the other cattle, in the pens, and where they grazed. Horses were also sometimes used after they had died and ground into fertilizer. This was also true for pigs, goats, sheep, and lamb. When they were packaged, diseased or not, the consumer would rarely get what they paid for. A pound of lamb could have easily been a goat, canned meats were usually and still are to this day a smorgasbord of normally unusable animal parts, and for a period of time beef was substituted with horse. Again, the industry and the government didn’t care as long as they were making money, nor did they care about the conditions for their workers. As a general rule, workers never had more than a ten year career span due to physical breakdown, amputation, mutilation, disease, or ultimately death. From facing such afflictions such as blood disorders, deadly boils, intestinal issues from inhalants and environment, and disfigurement to self-amputation, mutilation, spinal curvature from confined spaces, and death either by work environment or industrial accident, it is pretty safe to say that employees of this industry during this period had it just as bad if not worse than the

More about Reaction To Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

Open Document