I wrote with tears and anguish, pouring into the pages all the pain that life had meant to me.Upton Sinclair
Ranking alongside Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin as a novel that has galvanized public opinion, The Jungle tells the story of Jurgis Rudkus, a young immigrant who came to the New World to find a better life. Instead, he is confronted with the horrors of the slaughterhouses, barbarous working conditions, crushing poverty, disease, and despair.
Upton Sinclair vividly depicted factory life in Chicago in the first years of the twentieth century, and the harrowing scenes he related aroused the indignation of the public and forced a government investigation that led to the passage of pure food laws. A hundred years later, The Jungle continues to pack the same emotional power it did when it was first published.
