Essay 18-A: Meat Inspection Act, Public Health, and the People
If you like hamburgers, I would not recommend Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle. Its appalling depiction of the early 20th-century Chicago meatpacking industry is enough to churn the stomach of even the most dedicated carnivore.
An avowed socialist, Sinclair’s motivation in writing it was to turn the public against a capitalist system that he felt oppressed the working man. He did not succeed in winning the public over to socialism, but his graphic prose still caught people’s attention. Mere months after The Jungle hit the presses, the U.S. Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act, the latter of which created the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
As Sinclair himself put it, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”
If you read The Jungle in high school civics, it was likely presented as a triumph of the public interest. And it certainly was that. It shows that “We the People” can bring about significant changes just by making our voices heard. Public opinion helped spur quick and durable congressional action. Over a hundred years later, a visit to a modern meatpacking plant may not be anyone’s idea of a fun field trip, but it would (thankfully) prove a lot more boring.
