The Jungle
Upton Sinclair
I’ve always been fascinated with early 20th century history. Part of it may come from the fact that I was born and raised in Pittsburgh and still reside in the far eastern suburbs of the city. Industrial giants like Frick, Mellon and Carnegie called this city their home and the area was filled with thousands of insanely hard working individuals who toiled day after day in the mines, tanneries and steel mills. Hell with the lid off was how it was once famously described. Imagine a world with no EPA, no OSHA regulations, no vacations, no workers compensation and no public welfare system. Imagine a world with 6 day work weeks, 15 hour work days, kids as young as 7 or 8 working a 12 hour day instead of being in school and the breadwinner of the family bringing home anywhere from $5 to $10 a week. Instead of Pittsburgh and the steel mills, Upton Sinclair set his sights on the city of Chicago and the meat packing industry. The result was The Jungle released in 1906.
The Industrial Revolution had been in high gear by the time The Jungle was published. America was and still is the land of opportunity. In the early part of the 20th century non-English speaking immigrants came over in waves from places like Lithuania, Albania and Croatia and the allure of easy money in the USA insured a never ending supply of fresh meat, yet many of these people fell into a vicious cycle of discrimination and torment they could never escape.
At the top of the food chain were the robber barons. These were the elite members of society. These were the men who owned the railroads, the mines, the mills, the meat pack packing places, etc. At the bottom of the system were the workers who slaved away day and night just to survive. Relaxation was not an option for this class of society. The most comfort or recreation they could hope for would come in the form of a bottle. Whiskey and beer dulled the senses and most certainly helped people cope with their miserable existence. In the middle of this ladder were the Reformers. These were people who understood that it wasn’t right to have conditions worse than slavery exist. Instead of skin color they saw their Caucasian brothers and sisters discriminated against because of a language barrier.
At the turn of the century there existed immoveable roadblocks for people at the bottom rung of society. Often times they had been convinced to make the voyage to America from their native lands because of wild tales of wealth and riches that were promulgated by agents of the trusts. In the case of The Jungle an agent from what we would now call “Big Meat” would travel to far off lands in search of people looking to escape the constrictions of their native soil. “All people are free in America and with hard work you can make a better life for yourself and your family,” they would say. Meanwhile, the realities were quite different.
The hero of The Jungle is a Lithuanian named Jurgis Rudkis. He was a hulk of a man and epitomized the work ethic that the trusts most coveted. His wide eyed enthusiasm and virility made him stand out from the crowd of beaten down men looking for work in front of the packinghouse. On his first day he was selected to report to work the next day. How common this must have been? Someone fresh off the boat with bulging muscles and zero command of the English language would have been a perfect candidate to toil on the killing floor.
Jurgis begins his odyssey amidst the most deplorable working conditions, yet he is happy and content. Whenever an obstacle appears at his feat (making the interest payment on his house, helping to support a nonworking relative, paying off debts, etc.) his mantra is “I must work harder.” And he did. He did just like so many immigrants did. But there is a reason that the average life expectancy in the 1906 in the United States was 47.
Let’s examine what the USA looked like in 1906. There were only 45 stars on the flag. There were only 144 miles of paved road in the entire country and that went with the 8000 cars on the road. If you wanted to get somewhere you walked, or maybe took the train. The average laborer only made $300 a year while the average accountant made 10 times that amount. A skilled mechanical engineer may earn upwards of $5000 a year. Only 14% of the homes in the United States had a bathtub while women washed their hair on average once a month. A typical shampoo was borax or egg yolks.
In adjusted for inflation dollars the average worker would earn $6500 a year while the accountant would bring home $43,000 and the engineer would exceed $100,000. It is easy to see how an accountant sitting on the train next to fertilizer worker (who would have reeked of horrifying odors of chemicals, feces and spoiled and decaying livestock and remember there was no place to bathe) would have considered the lowly laborer less than even a second class citizen.
So Jurgis set off on his quest to make his fortune in America. He got a good job. He moved his family into a home they decided to try and purchase. He got hurt on the job and had to miss work. His wife got pregnant. His wife was raped. Family members either abandoned the homestead or died. He lost one job and found a vastly inferior one. He sent out the children of his family to the mean streets of Chicago to try and earn a few extra nickels. He discovered alcohol. He was arrested for assaulting the boss who raped his wife. He spent time in jail. His wife died. His only child drowned in the street in front of his house. Drowned in the street! Remember that statement about there only being 144 miles of paved roads in all of America? This was a life that is incomprehensible to us today. Yes there are poor people today and there are people with little opportunity, but in 1906 America, people literally starved in the streets. The people who disobeyed the laws of the day and fought with all of their might against the tremendous social injustices were merely rounded up and arrested.
Jurgis also joins the political machine of Chicago after falling in with a rather successful criminal. It is Darwinism for all intent purposes. The people without the proper education and background are forced to either slave away in squalor or they can fall in with the political machine and be one of the chosen ones. He finds himself a good position and finally gains some respectability even though it is because he has fallen in with a crowd that thinks nothing of exploiting the less fortunate. Soon his fists land him in trouble again and he is forced to a life as a hobo. It is here that he bathes in the cool clear waters of the countryside and washes away his sins. He is a free man. His family has been destroyed, yet having a family is for suckers anyway. As he drifts back to the city and finds a relative living as a prostitute, just to survive, his opinions of the great opportunities available to the common folk have most certainly been tainted. It is here that he falls in with the idea of socialism.
Sinclair set out to display the harsh realities of life for people living under the constraints of capitalism. Graft is common. If a robber baron doesn’t like the outcome of a court case, simply bribe the judge. Police corruption is common. Political bosses and robber barons own the country and all of its bounty. In fact when Sinclair finally arranged a meeting with Theodore Roosevelt it was to try and convince the president of the United States that a move toward socialism was in the best interest of the country. Socialists at that time were viewed as radicals, much like they are today. It would take the rise and fall of the Soviet Union to display that socialism while in theory sounds good, in practice is not feasible.
(What is graft in the meat industry? One form could come in the practice of using substandard meat products for certain products. For instance quite often the spoiled and rotten carcasses as well as rats, flies and the occasional human body would sometimes end up in sausages and canned meat products. These cans of meat would end up in the hospitals, prisons and as rations for our troops fighting in far off wars. In fact Roosevelt himself witnessed this when he spent his time with the Rough Riders during the Spanish American War. He had seen fellow soldiers die from eating spoiled and chemically tainted mean. Jurgis often wondered who would ever eat these horrible products. It turns out these disgusting products were sold by the meat trusts and they in turn profited from this garbage.)
So what does Sinclair accomplish with The Jungle? First and foremost he got the government to institute some regulations regarding the meat packing industry. At the time there was basically no government oversight and the meat companies were in charge of in essence policing themselves. Meat inspectors would simply look the other way regarding rotting shipments of meat. The congressmen who represented the districts of the meat packers pushed congress to keep reforms to a minimum. Back then they weren’t necessarily called lobbyists, but they certainly existed. Graft, bribes, kickbacks. These were all common elements of early 20th century industry. The Jungle may have helped reform some of these unfair practices but no means were they eradicated.
He also shows that desperate men must resort to desperate actions just to survive. His story is often times so depressing that it is difficult to stay with the novel. At one point Jurgis is accidently handed a $100 bill by a drunk member of high society, but Jurgis finds himself on the other end of the city with no way of getting home. He decides to try and change the large bill at a tavern and when he is given change for a dollar instead of a hundred he flies off in a rage and ends up in jail for the second time. The narrative is heart wrenching to say the least, but then again that is what Sinclair is after. This suffering is at times unbearable, and quite frankly in 21st century America, unbelievable.
Lastly, vegetarians the world over point to Sinclair’s work as the only reason anyone would ever need to avoid meat. The conditions were foul and the way the animals were treated was inhumane. Then if you factor in the idea that people would occasionally disappear from the line and wind up in a mixture of lard…it is no wonder that vegetarians point to this book as the bible of their movement.
In closing, the book was a bit harsh but then again that was the point Sinclair was after. Sinclair attempts to spin the reader into thinking that capitalism is bad and socialism is good. We can look at this work with the historical reference of Cuba and the Soviet Union and realize that this is simply not the case. Overall it is a compelling read. It is a disturbing read. It is novel that every American with even a remote interest in history should endure. Start it, stick with it and just like Jurgis would have done, work until you have finished it.