The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, is the fictitious account of a family of Lithuanian immigrants working in Chicago's Union Stock Yards. While it is a work of fiction, it brought to light the horrible working conditions of the Chicago meat-packing industry at the beginning of the 20th century.

By spring-copper1982

It feels like he wrote it mainly to show what was happening to working-class folks and immigrants, and it bothers me that a lot of people took away “we should just clean up what’s coming out of the factories.” I remember reading somewhere that Teddy Roosevelt said The Jungle was the strongest argument for socialism he’d seen, so I don’t really blame Sinclair for it being received so badly.