The Jungle

Upton Sinclair 1906

Devastation Rating

Emotionally Ruined
labor immigration capitalism meatpacking

Our Take

Sinclair wanted to write about the exploitation of immigrant labor in Chicago meatpacking; instead he started a food safety movement because Americans cared more about what was in their sausage than who made it. Jurgis Rudkus is destroyed by capitalism with the thoroughness of an industrial process. The system works exactly as designed.

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