Chapter seven then talks about the location of most meatpacking plants, in an urban city. Following that, Fast food nation, tells readers that Chicago was the meat capital of the world, at the time. Large meatpacking firms that employed around 40,000 people and shipped meat all throughout the United States and Europe was headquartered there. Upton Sinclair wrote the book titled “The Jungle” in 1906 based on working conditions in the meatpacking industry of Chicago. After poor working conditions were discovered and proven true, political influence on the meatpacking industry gave way for the “food safety Legislation”. This gave workers union representation and increased pay after WW2. Next, the book notifies on Iowa Beef Packers (IBP), telling us about its founders, employees, and working structures. IBP was the culprit for many wholesalers and butchers either going out of business or being fired, due to the fact that they had expanded their uses and ways of cutting beef. While talking about IBP, the workforce of its employees came to light. Dakota City workers went on strike and even showed violence towards those who were in a high position in IBP. Also, Iowa Beef packers…
Chapter 8: The Most Dangerous Job opens with a tour of a slaughterhouse. Schlosser is able to observe the crowded and bloody plant that processes live cattle into packaged meat. Meatpacking has become the most dangerous job in America and unlike poultry plants where most of the tasks are done by machines, most of the work in a slaughterhouse is done by hand. Hazards of the job include injuries from the various machines and knives and strain to the body from the poor working conditions. Additionally, women face the constant threat of sexual…
When thinking of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, many immediately picture the grotesque meat that was being packaged and sent out to the families all over the state and country. That is because of the paragraph about the meats, where Sinclair writes of the spoiled meat used as sausage; the many chemicals used to change color, flavor, and odor; and removing the bone from bad smoked hams, where a white-hot iron was placed instead. The bad meats were sold under false pretenses, and most of the time it worked. Boneless hams were odds and ends of pork, California hams were shoulders and knuckle joints, and skinned hams were made from old hogs (142). That passage so angered President Roosevelt that he had the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act passed, which had harsher laws regarding the meats that could be used. “‘I aimed at the public’s heart,’ said Sinclair, ‘and by accident I hit in the stomach’” (McCage). He said that because he was instead hoping to expose the poor working conditions and hopefully promote socialism. The workers in Packingtown were given very low wages; not even eighteen cents an hour (Sinclair 44)! They were treated very poorly and were given no sympathy for sickness or death. For example, Ona was dislike by her forelady after asking for a holiday to get married (112). Although it was not allowed to happen, bosses would blacklist workers, keeping them from ever getting a job (208). The working…
His book described the disease, spoiled, and contaminated meat which stunned the public which led to new federal food laws. The book is his fictionalized story of Chicago’s Packingtown. The title was the reflection of the how he saw the cruelty in meat-packing industry. The main character, “Jurgis” took the job at the Durham thinking this would help better his life, but this job was based on Armour & Co., the leading Chicago meat packer. He witnessed how the company would make the assembly line much faster and still pay workers the same amount of money. Also, how the company cheated workers out of their money by not paying them for working part of their hours. Men who worked there had skin diseases, tuberculosis and some had bad backs for carrying 100 pounds of meats. Also, men were spitting and coughing up blood near the meat station and plus the company had no restroom so they would urinate on the floor. For lunch, workers did not have an area to eat so they ate at their work area. The next chapter of his book stated how disease, spoiled, and contaminated meat were processed resulted from chemicals, and how they mislabeled their food. Workers would process…
The factories were extremely unsanitary, there were numerous injuries, and dangerous working conditions. Sinclair depicts the gruesome aspects of factory labor, such as human limbs getting caught in the machines and still being packaged along with the other meat. "The Jungle" changed the way food is distributed now, after the novel was published the FDA (food and drug administration) was established to inspect food quality.…
Meat would be piled on the floor before being hauled off in carts that had held sawdust, dead rats, rat droppings, and even rat poison ("Upton Sinclair's The Jungle"). The owners processed and sold diseased, injured or dead animals. Upton Sinclair claimed that meat from dead animals killed more U.S. soldiers than the all Spanish soldiers during the Spanish-American War (Sinclair, 96). The packinghouse barons were elated when they received animals with tuberculosis as the disease made them “fatten more quickly” (Sinclair, 97). Meat was packed under false names as well. “Potted game”, “potted grouse”, and “potted ham” were made of tripe, pork fat, beef suet, cow hearts and veal wastes (Sinclair, 96). Tripe was often sprayed with chemicals and sold as deviled ham; “...flavored with spices...” in order to mask the tastelessness (Sinclair, 97). Other cold cuts included such things as skin, hair, stomachs, ears, and noses (Muckrakers). The workers, echoing their environment, would sometimes add to the sordidness of the meat. There were often no restrooms, so workers would have to relieve themselves in corners of the processing floors ("Upton Sinclair's The Jungle"). If a restroom was available, there was often no soap in the bathroom and workers would process meat without washing their hands. One of Sinclair's most famous descriptions of the terrors of the packing house concerned men falling into vats of lard: “... their peculiar…
Orwell's 'Animal Farm' is an allegory because it represents Stalin's rise to power in Russia. His dictatorship to the people of Russia is how Napoleon treated the animals on the farm. Napoleon the pig represents Joseph Stalin, the dictating leader of the Soviet Union. Napoleon tricked the other animals into believing he was the only one that wanted the best for them. He slowly brought the farm from a more equal state to a state where he was considered and treated as a king. He also murdered any of the animals who opposed him or stood in his way, without trial. Stalin did the same by consolidating power and expanding the limits of his role. He eliminated anyone who tried to oppose him. He organized a massive purge where "enemies" were imprisoned,…
In George Orwell’s novel “Animal Farm” displays a society in a farm transforming from a utopian society into a dystopian society. Old Majors vision of a utopian society was successful after a win against their leader, however this perfect utopian society changes because of Napoleons gain in power, the inequality and human characteristics that the pigs had, these are excellent reasons on how Old Majors vision of a utopian society quickly becomes destroyed into a dystopian society. George Orwell fascinates the reader on…
When Napoleon had the power to follow his own rules, Animal Farm fell into a dictatorship. Most people have the ability to know what is right and wrong, but rules are still set to bind a community together. If people did not have set regulations to follow and be disciplined by, society would crumble into…
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Lord Acton). The novel Animal Farm by George Orwell, demonstrates multiple ways how power was abused during the time of the Russian Revolution. This book displays many parallels with history, for example, how the animals on the farm represent the people of Russia. On the other hand, the pigs, that portray the leaders of Russia, who wanted nothing but authority which lead to corruption. In interest of gaining more privileges and power, Squealer persuades the animals to let the pigs sleep in the beds using guilt and fear tactics.…
Within months of the publication of Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel, The Jungle, which was filled with nauseating detail about the unhealthy practices of Chicago's meat packing district, the public demanded sweeping reforms in the meat industry” (“Federal”).…
In the book “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair the author gives a critique of the early twentieth century labor practices in the growing cities of the United States. It gives people an opportunity to see all the factors that were going on not only in the meatpacking industry, but also the way working people lived and all the challenges that they had to overcome to just be able to survive. It also shows how the working conditions are in the city of Chicago. It shows how workers did their tasks in unsanitary conditions. The book would say that they would be working and rats would be passing by and because they were so tired they did not care anymore.…
In February 1906, the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group published the novel called The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. This novel exposed the plight of immigrants working in Chicago’s meatpacking industry. It depicted the severe working conditions of the meatpacking industries employees in Chicago and also described the unsanitary factory conditions that they had to work through during a daily basis. For example, some of the unacceptable conditions that were described were the mislabeled canned meats, meat supplies contaminated by human remains, thousands of rats, and water from leaky roofs dripping over the meat. This is just one of many horrific conditions that were going on in Chicago. All of these alarming conditions…
“And so the tale of confessions and executions went on, until there was a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon’s feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood” (Orwell 84). In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Mr. Jones is a neglectful farm owner who gets thrown off his land by the animals. A communist government begins to form, but it would soon replaced with totalitarianism. Napoleon, a ruthless pig with a taste for blood, takes power. He performs executions, as well as many other contemptible acts, as a fear tactic to ensure no one threatens his power. This is an allegorical tale that relates to the Russian Revolution as Napoleon, much like Joseph Stalin, act as a dictator who uses several manipulative forces…
In the late 1920’s Hitler became a Political activist. He influenced German people he would bring good changes to the country and take out all enemies. As the Nazi’s became more powerful, the Nazi’s changed their way and became bad. That reminds me of the Animal Farm by George Orwell. The transformation of the Pigs to humans is a result of greed, superiority, and manipulation.…