...I’m sure that, if you’re at all familiar with the American Labor Movement, you’ve at least heard of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. If you haven’t, however, it’s an exposé of the terrible working conditions faced by immigrant laborers in Chicago a little over 100 years ago. Though I’m not writing to rehash a chapter in a US History textbook, The Jungle signifies something important that was often left overlooked— the lack of care that many companies had for their laborers, as jobs were in high demand and employees were as replaceable as a box of tissues. The novel signified how laborers used to be treated and the lack of humanity that plagued them. Luckily enough, a shift in beliefs allowed for a movement that demanded that laborers are an integral...
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...newspapers. Photographs, fictional covers for extremely truthful situations, television, and social media have all been used as tools to publish findings. This powerful tradition continues today. These unconventional ‘weapons’ are extremely compelling and effective in spreading the knowledge of issues, thereby putting more power into influencing changes in both private and government policies. A major problem in the United States during the early 20th Century was the issue of Child Labor. Children were being put to work instead of being educated....
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...Workers join unions for three main reasons which are dissatisfaction with work environment, to increase influence in affecting a change of work environment, and employees perceives a potential benefit from joining a union (Bernardin & Russell, 2013). We can see that in 2004, 12.5% of wage and salary workers were members of a union which was a decline from 20.1% in 1983 (Bernardin & Russell, 2013). Education, training, and library occupation held the highest unionization rates in 2004 (Bernardin & Russell, 2013). There has been a steady decline of union membership over the last 13 years. In 2017, 10.7% of wage and salary workers were members of a union (BLS, 2018). The union membership of employees in education, training, and library occupation...
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...article “Significant Dates in Food and Drugs Law History”, this act came about after reading Upton Sinclair’s book titled “The Jungle.” Also, food and drug labels became required. Companies had to allow the public to be aware of what was in their products. The article “Social Welfare Developments” mentions labor laws regulated child labor and included approved measures to securing wages of employees involved in public works. When passing these reforms, Teddy Roosevelt found that the more he did, the more popularity he...
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...The Horrors of Packingtown Living and Dying in Packingtown, Chicago is an expert from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, which told the story of Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant trying to survive in Chicago. Sinclair wrote The Jungle with hopes to achieve better working conditions all around the United States, but also to show the corruption and evil that come with capitalism. His book was an instant best seller and caused massive reform of the meatpacking industry, however, this reform was focused on health concerns rather than concerns for the workers. “‘I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach,’ he said.” (BLACKWELL) Living and Dying in Packingtown, Chicago opens into the struggles of life at home for immigrant family with the painful death of their child, Kristoforas, who had eaten some tubercular beef which was unfit for export. The family could not afford a grave so the mother, Elzbieta, went in tears to beg from their local neighbors for a proper burial. This opening brings the reader instantly into the situation this family is in and what dire state of poverty they faced. Jurgis, having no job and a family to feed, went to the dreaded fertilizer plants which were talked about mostly in feared rumor. “Few visitors ever saw them, and the few who did would come out looking like Dante, of whom the peasants declared that he had been into hell.” (p. 74) Only the desperate resort to working at the fertilizer plants which was where all the “tankage”...
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...Social Darwinism struck most of the United States’ larger cities, leaving the poor to starve in the streets. Upton Sinclair was a novelist muckraker, someone who reveals corruption within large companies, which led to the creation of one of the most famous activist novels. Sinclair’s The Jungle depicts the utterly disturbing life of an immigrant living in the meatpacking area of Chicago. In the novel, Sinclair graphically describes the working conditions of Jurgis and other poorly paid workers. They were shut in dark, cold working environments with slippery knives which often injured workers accompanied with infection, putting them on their backs for months at a time. Throughout the novel, Sinclair manifests fictional events that often occurred...
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...1) What conditions and events led to the establishment of the labor movement and the subsequent laws establishing environmental and safety standards in the workplace? Child labor, unsafe working conditions, low pay, chemical poisoning, and explosions all contributed to the need for a labor movement. Upton Sinclair’s book, “The Jungle,” made people more aware of the unsafe working conditions and motivated them to bring about change through protests and unions. In the 1980 OSHA video, the narrator keeps mentioning that it was unfortunate that it took tragedies for certain laws and safety standards to be implemented. For example, 316 men died when a mine collapsed, afterward, the Bureau of Mines was created and safety feature was set in place to prevent similar accidents....
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...The Progressive Era what began in 1890 began as a social movement and later grew into a political movement through 1920. The rapid growth of industrialization presented consumer issues, labor problems, corporate greed, political corruption, and issues with women’s right. Progressivism was made up of people who believed that social issues could be addressed by good education, a safe environment, and a good workplace. The Progressive Era came at a time when the call for reforms in society at the local, state, and national level. The movement had a window of influence and could have been more effective if the reformist would have stuck together. When President Theodore Roosevelt was elected in 1901 he showed the Progressives desire to control the actions of big business. One of the victories was when the publication of...
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...Throughout this paper, I will be discussing about the meat packing industry during the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th to 29th century. I would like to expand on the environmental consequences of the meat packing industry, the cruel treatment of the workers, and the epidemic diseases that occurred due to the unsanitary environment of the industries. The meat packing industry was a ground turning point of U.S history, which symbolized meat as a symbol of man’s conquest over nature and the environment. Meatpacking industries were largely concentrated in large cities such as Chicago, New York, Ohio, and Kansas City. The big four companies were known as the Armour, Swift, Morris, and National Packing companies. Live animals would be shipped via railroads and sent directly to the factories in the city, ready to be sliced and prepared. This was during the Industrial Revolution , a time when powerful monopolies and companies took control of U.S.: Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, including meat packing industry. Cincinnati, Ohio originally was the center of the meat processing industry. Environmentally, the industry gained benefits due to the plants located near the Ohio River, allowing easy transport of goods. However, Chicago replaced Cincinnati and demonstrated new unique advantages with the emergence of refrigerated railroad cars, allowing convenient transportation facilities throughout different cities. Despite the fact that the exterior of meat packing industries seemed powerful...
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...| Capitalism vs. Socialism during the 1920’s | Diamond Jackson | | History II Dr. Hilton | | | Upton Sinclairs’ The Jungle is a common form of muckraking during the 20’s. The book is about a Lithuanian family who relocated to the US in hopes of finding success and building better lives. After hearing the story of how America supports the idea of freedom, and has unlimited opportunity, the main character Jurgis is convinced America was the place to be. Once arriving to America and coming in contact with the reality of the myth of his ideal society, Jurgis exposes the deeply rooted capitalism and the effects and problems that it causes. Because of this, Sinclair feels that socialism is the remedy to the capitalistic conditions he’s now a part of. Andrew Carnegies’ The Gospel of Wealth is a viewpoint of how beneficial capitalism is to American society and economy which is seen through the eyes of a high-class businessperson. Carnegie discusses the history of there being an equal society, the natural law of competition, and the capitalistic results and benefits. Sinclairs’ The Jungle and Carnegies’ The Gospel of Wealth are opposing viewpoints, therefore when it comes to the unequal distribution of wealth and ideas about capitalism and socialism both arguments are supportive and reasonable to a certain extent. In the 1920’s, the unequal distribution of wealth is evident and Americans start to see many cultural changes. America has now adopted the idea of...
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...progressive era, everybody wants to come to the Unites States and try their prosperity and hard drudgery. Compared to the past, it is a lot easier for immigrants to come to the states now and live a dignified and covetable life, but back then in the 19th century, when capitalism was at its peak, settling here was a go for the gold race. ‘The jungle’, written by Upton Sinclair revolves around the same situation. It portrays the character of Jurgis Rudkus as a strong and optimistic man who believed the American dream with full faith but falls the victim of his own strengths. Through most part of the book, Jurgis does whatever a slave in...
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...“I am in this cause with my whole heart and soul. I believe that the Progressive movement is making life a little easier for all our people; a movement to try to take the burdens off the men and especially the women and children of this country. I am absorbed in the success of that movement.” – Theodore Roosevelt Progressivism reached its peak in the United States during the late 19th century, in which it was a reform movement that many took part in to make the country excel in all areas of society including: politically, socially, and economically. Progressives wanted to eliminate waste and corruption, supported improved child labor laws, minimum wage legislation, graduated income tax, and equality for all citizens. With this, progressivism...
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...trusts, while Roosevelt believed in distinguishing between good trusts and bad trusts. Woodrow Wilson’s presidency followed Taft, and Wilson focused largely on tariff rates. He did this through the Underwood-Simmons Act, which was very effective in drastically reducing tariff rates. Wilson argued that high tariff rates hurt consumers and contributed to the formation of monopolies. Wilson was also a strong supporter of the Clayton Antitrust Act, which prohibited price-fixing and interlocking directorates. In the same year, the Federal Trade Commission was passed, which regulated corrupt business practices. He also passed the Adamson Act, guaranteeing an eight hour workday to railroad workers. He attempted to pass an act prohibiting child labor, but it was ruled unconstitutional by Congress. Wilson tried to support the Progressive platform...
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...The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, and its effect on labor. In contrast to modern day, Unions during the industrial revolution lived up to the era, and through demonstrations, strikes, and tragedies, were revolutionized. Making the workplace safer, hospitable, and bringing an end to the horrors seen through tragedy and scandal. Upton Sinclair’s tell-all book “The Jungle” brought the inhumane conditions in the meat packing industry, and gave people an inside look into the day-to-day operations of a factory cloaked in scandal, and expelling filth and disease through out the populations. While such tragedies such as the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory Fire of 1911, brought to the masses another look into what these extreme conditions can do for production, and its employee’s well being. These factors contributed to reforms in the way America does business. The modern union was born, and in its infancy proposed the basis of the way we work to this day. The industrial revolution brought the United States into a technological and production level that helped to bring the US into the world stage as an economic super power. However, this technology and ramp up in production resulted in poor working conditions, the exploiting of children, meager wages, and a sense that the inhumane was routine and normal. The story of a building thought to be completely and safe with state of the art fireproofing and “their owners put had their trust in that.” ("141 men and," 1911) However at about...
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...workers powerless to correct inhuman work place conditions. Although newspapers are publishing the results of the changes, and other groups offering suggestions of what needs to be done to help the worker, the whole dilemma has stagnated without being corrected. Without the support of banding together and forming unions the immigrant workers remain at the mercy of their employers. The efforts, if they can be called that, amount to for the most part, empty suggestions when actions are long overdue. The early sixties found the meat packing industry cutting wages in half and dropping many benefits. Unions no longer had the hold needed to protect the worker. Workers were for the most part immigrants from Mexico who accepted the meatpackers’ low wages and tried to successfully keep pace with the high speed operation of which the industry demanded. More and faster production left workers extremely vulnerable to an industry already fraught with accidents. Kutalik called it a “meaner industry.” Crisis was inevitable as the meatpacking industry restructured, closing old, union controlled, urban plants while setting up newer non-union plants and recruiting cheap immigrant labor. With the rise of the fast food business and the population explosion following World War II, there were demands for more and more meat products. Opportunists in the meat packing business took...
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