The Jungle Is Relevant Today

In 1906, The Jungle was published, and became an instant classic.  Upton Sinclair was an American author, mainly remembered for this one book.  However, he wrote 90 books in all.  He was an socialist, and was commissioned by the leading socialist organization of the time, to write a book about social change.  Sinclair picked the Chicago meatpacking industry as the vehicle to expose the plight of the poor, difficulties for immigrants, greed, and corruption at every level of police and government.  Sinclair's philosophy was one of social Darwinism:  like evolution, the best, brightest and strongest people rise to the top.  We know today that this is not so, as there are many social factors that go into success.

The Jungle was responsible for the creation of the FDA.  After reading the book, Theodore Roosevelt called Upton Sinclair to discuss issues in the book, particularly those relating to food safety.  From that discussion and the book itself, Roosevelt created the FDA.  That was over  100 years ago, and the FDA has definitely protected consumers, but still has a long way to go.  At the time there were actually arguments against even having the FDA.  Opponents say there is nothing in the Constitution and thus it wasn't anything the government should be involved in.  Roosevelt argued that the food industry was involved in interstate commerce, and thus could be regulated.

The book was so popular at the time, that the sale of meat dropped by 50% shortly after its publication.  Armour was the biggest meat packing company at that time, and they used their influence to try to get libraries not to carry the book.

One might argue that the FDA has too much power today, but we must have some regulation of our food and how it is grown and packaged.  Without FDA oversight, we'd have the fox guarding the hen house.  Hardly a month goes by that we don't hear about tainted meat or vegetables, so for protection of consumers, we must have regulation.  With world wide imports and exports today it is more important than ever.  The Jungle, which showed  the dark side of the meat packing industry  through several immigrant families, touched on just about every social issue that we face today.  I reread the book for a class I am taking.  I read it first over 50 years ago, and it's message was more powerful now than it was then.