Upton Sinclair was an ardent fighter for conditions in the meatpacking industry in America, publishing a book, The Jungle, on the topic, which contributed a public outcry that led to the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. Meatpacking plants were getting away with reducing the quality of their food considerably, putting expired and even moldy meat into sausages and putting them up for sale, among other atrocities.
This was a blatant disregard of ethics, and not only played people for fools, but also played with their well-being. Additionally, the meatpackers themselves worked in terrible conditions, a safety hazard and disregard for human dignity. To research these crimes, Sinclair actually went undercover as a meatpacker for two years He also fought against yellow journalism in America, and his papers on the subject were a partial causation for an ethic code for journalists, published four years after his 1919 criticism of yellow journalism, The Brass Check. His exposés were regarded as widely eye-opening and contributed to many reforms; however, he was widely criticized because he identified as a Socialist, even running for Congress under the ticket.
The Progressive Era showed that one man can make a difference. The Gilded Age, the time period preceding the Progressive Era, was one of several severe social maladies, such as poor working conditions, widespread poverty, corrupt government and greedy business owners. Many people were fed up; few decided to voice their words.
Those few, however, they spoke, they made their voices heard, and ushered in a new Progressive Era, one in which the nation’s woes from the Gilded Age were mended. Under such men as President Theodore Roosevelt, and with the help of such men as Upton Sinclair, the stench of corruption was bought to the surface, and amended. Trusts were busted, working conditions reformed, and life for the majority of Americans became better. One person, in this time, through an exposé or a newspaper article, could bring down a corporate scandal. Their ideas were heard, their controversies investigated, and their cries for justice answered. Ida Tarbell bought Rockefeller to his knees with one incriminating book. Upton Sinclair blew the meatpacking scandal wide open with his book, and these are but a few examples of one person, man or woman, who could make a difference.
