“A cultural revolution ignited” In the late nineteenth-century and early
twentieth-century the country was experiencing a boom time in the economy, but
it came at the expense of the average poor immigrant. As long as business men
were making a buck they didn’t care or who what they exploited in order to do
so. Also, there were no limitations on what any industry can and can not do. The
United States Government had a laissez-faire policy at the time, and the economy
was let be. This proved harmful to the everyday American because they had no
protection under the laws in there workplace’s. In the novel The Jungle, by
Upton Sinclair, he exposes the wrongs of our society at the time by using
literary muckraking, to “dig the dirt” of our economic system. Society
needed a red flag in order for humanitarians of societies middle and upper
classes to take affirmative action against inhumane acts involving the
workplace. The Jungle was one of the key factors in the progressive movement
because of it’s popularity. Also it is a perfect example of muckraking, and
even the graphicness of the book told the horrid tale of the meat packing plants
of Chicago. It gave such a realistic image of how life was like for most of the
population. This novel sparked a great number of political reforms, the meat
packing plants were inspected thoroughly and child labor was outlawed in many
states and enforced successfully. The reason why action wasn’t taken sooner
was because the people who controlled the government were of the upper classes
of society, even after these atrocities were exposed many politicians were
reluctant to take action because business’ involved their peers and that is
“bad business” as a politician. The majority of the people of greater means
were distraught and took any action they could. For example, many civic leaders
such as Seth Low of NY challenged the political machine of New York, Tammany
Hall. The progressives never went as far as to starting their own political
party, mainly because the two existing parties adopted many of the progressives
goals. It never really took off on a national level because the national level
politicians “knew were their bread was buttered”. The feedback this book got
indirectly was phenomena it also was a segue to many of the action taken during
the Great Depression. Upton Sinclair got his point across ten fold and it
basically raked every inch of muck society had to offer. The government
officials of the time were almost forced to go along with this movement because
unless they wanted to be out of office they had to adopt reformists policies.
They had to regulate almost everything which was always never to be tampered
with. They were looking at the problems as humanitarian and they still left the
economy alone and this proves an very bad mistake in our history. Upton Sinclair
changed the way our society thought and acted towards being sensitive towards
human needs no matter the social background. Sinclair did it using a real family
and real event s and that is what made it social stand against the exploitations
of children and adults in the workplace and he lived it so that is what made it
a real experience for him and made the writing process much more vivid then it
would have been without first hand experience. This set the standard for
investigative journalism even though it is work of literature. It also sparked a
revolution which had been the most constructive revolution socially in history
up to this point and I hope Upton Sinclair received acclaim for his work of
literature.