When learning about the past, humanity has always resorted to different forms of recording and interpreting the events. History comprises people’s experiences under different political, economic, social, and cultural circumstances, which are incorporated to portray an accurate description of a given historical period or event. In the 19th-20th century America, the presence of immigrant workers and their contribution to the US economy was essential. Upton Sinclair’s history novel under the title The Jungle is a vivid political fiction work first published as a book in 1906. The author was a political journalist interested in uncovering the corrupted system of the meat-producing industry in some big cities in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century. I selected this book from the list because it seemed compelling to learn more about immigrant workers’ lives, which I had not known much about. The author’s purpose for writing The Jungle was to de-romanticize the American Dream by uncovering the corruption, bias, and violation of human rights and food production standards to criticize the atrocities of capitalist economy and society.
The period referenced in this novel is the beginning of the 20th century in the United States of America. Sinclair focused on the historical events at the Chicago Stockyards where the authorities violated meat production and employment standards. There were several real-life facts that I learned after reading this book. First, I learned that immigrant workers faced challenges at finding jobs and finding a place to live. In particular, when Ona and Jurgis rented a house, they were tricked into unfair payment and had to live in bad conditions (Sinclair 30). Second, immigrants of a very young age had to relocate and start their employment at places like meat factories, where the labor was physically difficult and the conditions were unbearable. Indeed, Ona was only 15 when she moved to the USA and ultimately had to work to keep the house. Moreover, she had to go to work one week after giving birth to her first child. This aspect of immigrant lives demonstrates the lack of employee rights protection in the described industry and time. Third, I learned that large food-producing organizations neglected safety measures regularly due to their greed and a slave-like attitude toward the immigrant labor force. Health risks due to unsanitary conditions and inhumane attitudes from employers’ side made immigrants’ existence miserable. Overall, the author vividly demonstrated that capitalism as an economic doctrine was far from perfect and humane in the early 1900s, which filled the gaps in my knowledge on this issue.
Several captivating quotes might illustrate the power of the author’s message in the book. One of the characters states that “all the fair and noble impulses of humanity, the dreams of poets and the agonies of martyrs, are shackled and bound in the service of organized and predatory Greed” (Sinclair 359). This quote best characterizes the premises of a dehumanizing capitalist economy that is led by the desire to earn money by all means. Moreover, another quote demonstrates how corporations ruled the world through deliberate deception. The novel states that “the great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country” (Sinclair 88). In a different quote, the author emphasizes the unattainable nature of the American dream because immigrants have no access to the mere essentials of life. He refers to life as an immigrant as a prison, where one kind of prison is where “the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside” (Sinclair 337). The other kind, the life of a working enslaved immigrant, is “where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside” (Sinclair 337). I would recommend this book to others because it integrates historical accuracy, personalized experiences, and emotional appeal to understand what the life of immigrant workers in 1900s America was like.
Work Cited
Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, 1906.