Meat Packing Industry (The Jungle)

As the United States quickly developed in the early 1900s, the government and laws were unable to keep up with the rapid changes occurring socially and in the economy. This is the case with the meat packing industry. Today, working in the meatpacking industry is often looked down upon as a terrible job, but back then, without any sanitation and regulation laws, the conditions were horrifying. In 1905, a socialist writer called Upton Sinclair was called to write about the conditions in the factories. Sinclair described the conditions in gruesome detail. He said how the meat that fell on the floor would mix with sawdust, dirt, and millions of germ before being packed up and shipped anyway. There would be rats scurrying about in every room, including on the meat that was about to be packed. He described how the meat would be contaminated with rat urine, and even the poison used to kill the rats. Workers had no place to wash their hands, so they had to wash them in water that would be later used to make sausage. Men, including children, could be forced to work 12-15 hours a day with little pay. Sinclair's novel was an immediate success and eventually lead to the creation of the FDA. Thank's to his graphic description of what was occurring in the factories, progress was made in an effort to sanitize working conditions with new acts such as the "Meat Inspection Act". Conditions would slowly but surely improve in the later decades.