Before that, apples were commonly treated with poisonous red dyes and meat was treated with poisons like borax and formaldehyde to kill mold or disguise rot. In the 1920s, a new era of industrial-scale farming began when poultry became the first factory-farmed animal. The meatpacking industry has played a major role in Illinois history, from labor issues and employment opportunities to the growth of certain . After the skin turned red, it then hardened and cracked. In 1865, Union Stock Yards opened in Chicago. Human beings are no exception. On Aug. 11, 1919, two former high school football rivals named Earl Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun organized a football team of their own. Workplace accidents, like John Panzezyks, were all too common. She has a PhD in Media, Art and Text from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BA in film production from Marlboro College. There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. The working conditions in the meat packing industry during the early 1900's was primal and barbaric. His novel, The Jungle (1906), a shocking expos of the unsanitary and dangerous conditions in the plants, was an immediate best-seller and incited President Roosevelt to enact a series of food safety laws. The Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 forced meatpackers to be honest with their product labeling and to create sanitary preparation conditions. It was the meatpacking industry itself which pursued the government to bring about federal legislation and regulation to their business. He would go on to be one of the most prolific writers in American literature, publishing over eighty books, pamphlets, and studies. The Stockyard community was the residential area next to the stockyards, and the many meatpacking plants in Chicago. Largest of all was the meat-packing industry in Chicago. All that mattered to the industry was that they made as much money as possible with as little expenditure as possible. At a time when half of the American population lived and worked on farmscompared to 2% todayLincoln called it the Peoples Department. The USDA is still charged with ensuring that meat is safe, properly inspected, and correctly packaged to this day. The big boys could simply increase their prices to cover the cost of the new regulations. In Chicago 1900 the Chicago meatpacking industry, along with other industries, began to expand and grow. In the 1900s, the food and labor industry were far from perfect. The Chicago meatpacking business was a deadly one. Wearing gloves or hair nets was not a consideration. Psychological Research & Experimental Design, All Teacher Certification Test Prep Courses. Over the 1950s, the UPWA gained strength thanks largely to its leadership on civil rights. Animals were shipped there from all over the country, leaving as meat products that fed people across the globe. There was no market for beef in the decimated Southern economy, but demand was rampant in the North, where ranchers could get 10 times more for a head of cattle than they could in the Southif only they could get their longhorns to the Yankee markets. Corrections? Congress in 1916 passed a law mandating a grading system to classify different types, cuts, and qualities of meat that consumers could use to make educated purchasing decisions. By the turn of the last century there were only five or six mammoth meatpacking companies, and they controlled the majority of meatpacking in America. By rough estimates, thousands of children were working in the Chicago meatpacking business at the turn of the century. Before the age of throw-away gloves and protective clothing, skin infections were a source of chronic concern. She also has a certificate in teaching online from UMGC and non-profit marketing and fundraising from UC Davis. Fresh immigrants, many of them Polish, and an abundance of children as young as 8 years old, made up their work force. And, if you had the misfortune of dining on cholera infected meat, (massive infection of the intestines), your chances of survival were slim. In 1905, Upton Sinclair, a socialist journalist, published The Jungle, a book based on his investigation into the meatpacking industry. Industrialists challenged unions through several methods. The meatpacking industry was characterized by horrible sanitary conditions and the abuse of workers. Decent Essays. With industrialization came new systems of labor. Im going to read it in fullvery important book to understand American history and the struggle of workers and immigrant to assimilate. They organized to demand higher pay, better working conditions, and job security. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/conditions-meatpacking-plants-1906-upton-sinclair, Muckrakers, The: Jacob Riis, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell. The, Vascular plants are plants with specialized tissue that act as a pipeline for carrying the food and water they need. At the centre of public outrage was the Beef Trusta collaborative group made up of the five largest meatpacking companiesand its base of packinghouses in Chicagos Packingtown area. The medical term was called dermatoconiesis; the workers, however, gave the infection a more appropriate term pickled hands. As anyone familiar with Upton Sinclairs muckraking novelThe Jungle knows, meatpacking was also terrible work in the early twentieth century. Most common jobs in America 100 years ago, Americas first shipment of cattle by railroad, The most liberal public colleges in America, Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, 12 original companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (and what happened to them), poultry became the first factory-farmed animal, Where America sends its planes and 25 other manufacturing exports, The beef industry struggled during World War II, The most conservative public colleges in America, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Farm Animal and Field Crop and Research Facilities Protection Act, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1. During this times people were often made sick and died either from working conditions or poor food quality. . Rules about their safety in the workplace did not exist. In 1940, Jones perfected his design, Werner began building his trucks, and meat could now be reliably transported over the road for long distances any time of year. Select. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. Packingtown was notorious for their awful living conditions and working conditions. But, as union researcher Daniel Calamuci wrote in 2008, it wasnt always like this. This new industry centralized in the Midwestern states of Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Illinois, and Indiana. Progressives wanted to fix. The industry supported certain political parties. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. now they had thrown him away!Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906) them left to be worth exhibiting,sometimes they would be overlooked for days, There was money to be made both at home, as well as overseas. It would take at least two months or more to heal; and, that was if they were allowed to work in another department so the infection could heal. Meatpacking brought in more than 23.5 million dollars to the city's economy that year, just 3.5 million dollars behind the iron industry. By the time Calamuci was writing, meatpacking work had once again become far lower paid than manufacturing jobs, as it still is twelve years later. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. A tentative beef-grading system was established and in 1924, those standards were published and codified. Despite the widespread use of brining or salting meat, some of the processed meat was not always properly preserved. The rise of the meat-processing industry coincided with the rise of the American labor movement, and just as coal miners, steelworkers, and railroad workers sought power through collective bargaining, so, too, did meat workers. By the 1870s, meatpacking plants were using technology like steam power, monorail trolleys, and mechanical mixers, choppers, and stuffers in factory settings where stationary workers doing individual jobs broke down and processed animal carcasses that continuously passed by them. Detail 4 Cheap Equipment To save money, the companies would often buy old and rusty machinery that would often break down. Upton Sinclair: Facts, Books & Accomplishments, The Muckrakers of the Progressive Era: Definition and Influence, Issues in the 19th Century Meat Packing Industry, Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906: Definition, Summary & History, Smarter Balanced Assessments - ELA Grades 6-8: Test Prep & Practice, Study.com SAT Reading Test Section: Review & Practice, English 101 Syllabus Resource & Lesson Plans, Middle School Language Arts: Lessons & Help, Literacy Instruction in the Elementary School, GACE Program Admission Assessment Test I Reading (210): Practice & Study Guide, OAE Middle Grades English Language Arts (028) Prep, Common Core History & Social Studies Grades 11-12: Literacy Standards, Study.com ACT® Reading Test Section: Prep & Practice, The Organization Man by William Whyte: Summary & Analysis, Fun, Interactive Writing Activities: Individual & Group, Recursively Using Stages of the Writing Process, Mammon and the Archer Discussion Questions, Working Scholars Bringing Tuition-Free College to the Community, Overwork, sometimes upwards of 12 hours a day, Poor wages, mostly drained by exploitative landlords, Exposure to contaminated water, feces, and other dangerous substances, Physically dangerous conditions, with many injured or even killed by slaughtering machines thanks to industrialists' cutting corners on safety for the sake of speedy processing, Slum living conditions where tuberculosis and diseases spread like wildfire. In 1865, the Chicago stockyards became the U.S. biggest livestock market, and Cincinnati Omaha, Nebraska, and Kansas City, Kansas emerged as major meatpacking hubs. Asked by sidney b #832622 on 10/20/2018 1:38 AM Last updated by jill d #170087 on 10/20/2018 2:26 AM Answers 1 Add Yours. What was Meatpacking in the Twentieth Century United States? During the war of 1812, a meat packer from Troy, New York, named Samuel Wilson filled a contract to supply meat to American troops fighting the British. One of its most effective tactics was undercover investigationsoften conducted by moles who sought jobs in slaughterhouses to serve as spiesthat dramatically increased public awareness of horrifying and systematic cruelty to animals at slaughterhouses, meat-processing facilities, and factory farms. Additionally, the meatpacking industry employs a large number of undocumented immigrants. The reality of this terrible event offers a small window into the family tragedy that would have certainly followed. Boston, and later Philadelphia, had been the central hubs of the U.S. meatpacking industry in the countrys early years, but in the mid-1860s, the Midwest grew to become the core of the industry. You may also like: Quiz: Do you know these 50 famous companies by their logos? They were built and operated to process as much meat as quickly as possible, which led to ghastly conditions that were unsanitary and unsafe for animals and workers alike. Stacker believes in making the worlds data more accessible through New Labor Forum, Vol. Support JSTOR Daily! Meatpacking is a dangerous job, and the wage is low. You may also like: Most common jobs in America 100 years ago. Workers' attempts to make unions were met with intimidation. It dramatically shortened the time it took to bring meat to market; old-school cattle drives took months to complete and often resulted in huge losses of herds. Early that morning, John Panzezyk set off from his dismal tenement home in the Stockyard district to walk the short distance to his job at a meatpacking plant. 1971 signaled the end of one of the greatest eras in meatpacking history when the Chicago stockyards closed. The corporate titans whose fortunes their labor creates are now and have always been among the wealthiest and most politically influential powerbrokers in the country. His work days were usually 12 to 15 hours, and this day, he was simply hoping to stay warm. It led more workers to organize with Amalgamated. But, Calamuci writes, that changed after World War II, thanks largely to the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA), which organized the eras dominant meatpacking companies, known as the Big Four. Today, fast-food is a $223 billion industryMcDonalds alone sells 75 hamburgers every second at more than 37,000 locationsand the incredible demand for inexpensive and instant meals can only be met with mountains of cheap meat. They were packing filthy meat for human consumption. Laura Allan. The idea of a persons hands actually becoming pickled is beyond understanding. Cowboys became hired gunmen as bloody Range Wars raged between cattlemen and the new arrivalsthe meatpacking industry was about to be transformed forever. Theodore Roosevelt on June 30, 1906, that prohibited the sale of adulterated or misbranded livestock and derived products as food and ensured that livestock were slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. New technologies such as the railroad and the refrigerated railcar meant that people could transport meat over long distances. He said goodbye to his wife and four small children. . It also mandated strict inspections for all imported meat. In addition to being handled by unclean workers in an unsanitary environment, large volumes of meat were not always refrigerated. Chickens and hens were the first animals to be raised indoors in enormous quantities for egg production and slaughter. Some infected workers just continued handling and contaminating the meat despite their hands essentially being pickled, and, as long as they could stand it. The animal industry produces 52 billion pounds of meat and 48 billion pounds of poultry every year. While the plot of the novel focuses on the life of a Lithuanian immigrant in the industry, its gut-wrenching depictions of the abuse of the working class and the horrible sanitation in the facilities moved the American public. There was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage. Background Meatpacking is physical, hands-on work conducted indoors in close quarters, conditions that put meat processing workerswho are mostly immigrants and African-Americansat risk more than virtually any population other than nursing home residents and prisoners. document.getElementById( "ak_js_3" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); JSTOR Daily provides context for current events using scholarship found in JSTOR, a digital library of academic journals, books, and other material. The University of Minnesota unveiled the first meat laboratory around 1900, and in the first two decades of the 20th century, dozens of major colleges and universities across the country began adding courses dealing with livestock and meat. Virtually every animal on Earth either kills other animals to sustain itself or is unfortunate enough to play the opposite role, being devoured by another animal for the same purpose. Updates? Thousands of miles of cheap but highly effective barbed wire soon cordoned off small farms and homesteads across the West, making large scale open cattle grazing impossible. The UFCW adopted a less militant stance. This drove the government to pass the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906, which forced meatpackers to increase sanitation, and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which applied higher standards to the food and drug industry. Food was produced in plants that were ridden with diseases and vermin, while workers were exposed to unsafe labor conditions and horrible treatment. The 1960s were a decade of reformand also a decade when Americas food-supply chain became vastly more sprawling and complex. ITHAKA. With hordes of Homesteaders and bloody range wars making traditional cattle drives more difficult, McCoy turned to the burgeoning railroad industry and built a town called Abilene in a strategically centralized spot in Kansasit was Americas first cowtown. (402) 494-2061 Upton Sinclair spoke to that in his novel The Jungle : And as for the other men, who worked in tank rooms full of steam, and in some of Sadly, there are numerous accounts of the premature deaths of the workers. ." The explosive growth of American industry in the late nineteenth century caused a similar expansion in the work force. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Originally founded as an agrarian society, the early U.S. was made up largely of small- and medium-sized farms where animals roamed freelythat all changed when farmers and ranchers began fencing in their animals with barbed wire in the late 19th century. The skin would split and open, sometimes all the way to the bone. "Men who used knives on the sped-up assembly lines frequently lost fingers. As the scale and size of their facilities increased, so did the dangers. However, with the Industrial Revolution came new systems of labor. In a time when big business ruled, and workers had no rights, and certainly no extended benefits, it is likely that Mrs. Panzezyk and her children would soon become destitute, and possibly homeless. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/conditions-meatpacking-plants-1906-upton-sinclair, "Conditions in Meatpacking Plants (1906, by Upton Sinclair) The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 (United States) was passed after years of reports on the unsafe and unsanitary practices of the meatpacking industry. Sinclair wrote The Jungle to inform the world about how not only the meat packing industry was flawed, but also how the working conditions of that time were flawed. distribution partner, email us at Its like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. By early 1906 both the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act had long been stalled in Congress, but, when the Neill-Reynolds report had fully confirmed Sinclairs charges, Roosevelt used the threat of disclosing its contents to speed along the passage of both acts, which became law on the same day. In 1905, Upton Sinclair (1878-1968), a young socialist journalist and novelist, received a $500 advance to write a novel about abuses in the meat processing industry and spent seven weeks investigating the subject in Chicago. storytelling. Not only are disease and infections rampant, but animalsoften from birthundergo tortuously cruel procedures like tail docking, beak-burning, and castration without any pain mitigation, all of which is performed by poorly paid, overworked, mostly-immigrant employees who are frequently subject both to physical injury and psychological trauma. Cut up by the two-thousand-revolutions-a-minute flyers, and mixed with half a ton of other meat, no odor that ever was in a ham could make any difference. till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as Durhams Pure Leaf Lard!. ." After you look at these images of meat-packing facilities from early last century, you'll understand why social reformer Upton Sinclair wrote his great 1906 novel The Jungle about workers'. Working undercover for the newspaper Appeal to Reason, Sinclair spent seven weeks inside Chicago's meatpacking industry. By the 1880s, the European meat markets closed their doors to imported American meat. share our stories with your audience. Roosevelt had seen enough, and in 1906, he muscled Congress into passing the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA), which he signed the very same year that Sinclair published The Jungle. It mandated strictly regulated sanitary conditions for before, during, and after the slaughter of animals, made it a crime to sell misbranded or adulterated cattle, and charged the USDA with conducting meticulous inspections. Self-Service Meats: Supermarket circa 1950 Animal rights activists and. After reading it, President Theodore Roosevelt sponsored the Neill-Reynolds report, which confirmed Sinclairs charges. the economics of the industry only encourage faster line speeds. There were 85,000 pigs being processed there annually by 1833; by 1850, Cincinnati earned the nickname Porkopolis., You may also like: The best school district in every state. Before the refrigerated railcar, ranchers bred cattle for endurance to survive long, grueling cattle drives, but the invention of the cold car allowed ranchers to breed cattle for the quality of their meat. Poultry is generally not included. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. By 1900, biochemists and physiologists had identified protein, fat, and carbohydrates as the basic nutrients in food. One of the most prolific and important writers in American history, Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906. At the turn of the last century, the bosses of the meatpacking industry viewed workers as totally replaceable, expendable, and with only limited value to them. The impact on humans who ingested this meat was the passing of tuberculosis bacteria, a deadly lung infection. Your email address will not be published. ." And, they felt it was time to drive them out of business. It was the beginning of a new era in the meat industry and the dawn of the Wild West, as rugged, lawless, prosperous, and violent cowtowns began coalescing around major railroad shipping points where thousands of cattle were herded onto train cars for transport as thousands of dollars were changing hands. We publish articles grounded in peer-reviewed research and provide free access to that research for all of our readers. Box 515 1 (Spring, 2008), pp. According to historian Eric Schlosser, the meatpacking industry has a well-documented history of discouraging injury reports, falsifying injury data, and putting injured workers back on the job quickly to minimize the reporting of lost workdays. In the days before health inspections, notwithstanding any regulations related to the quality control of both animals and the processing of meat, a number of different bacterias infected the meat. Your email address will not be published. Choice, and U.S. As foreign countries began scrutinizing U.S. exports of meat more strictly, American meat producers found it harder to compete in overseas markets. There are a few guidelines and "I aimed at the public's heart," Sinclair said, "and by accident I hit it in the stomach." Pork was the meat of choice in America from colonial times until the early 1800s when beef began growing in popularity. "Conditions in Meatpacking Plants (1906, by Upton Sinclair) To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. In 1980, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was formed and quickly grew into the countrys premier animal rights organization. He advertised heavily and offered a good price to ranchers who would deliver their cattle to his railyard in Abileneand he delivered on his promise, entering the phrase the real McCoy into the American lexicon. Web site: http://www.ibpinc.com The novel was an instant international best seller and prompted massive public outrage at the contamination and sanitation issues raised in the work, even though Sinclairs primary intent in writing the story was to promote socialism. In response to the public outcry in the wake of The Jungle, President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned Charles P. Neill and James Bronson Reynolds to investigate the claims made by Sinclair, which Roosevelt suspected the author might have embellished to advance his socialist agenda. In 1662, he became the New Worlds first meatpacker when he began packing large quantities of salted pork into barrels for export to the West Indies. And that is exactly what happened. Bovine tuberculosis was usually found in raw milk, but it also showed up in infected animals, especially when the meat was undercooked. Strapped for cash, Lambeaua worker at a meatpacking plantasked his employer, the Indian Packing Company, for funds to pay for equipment and uniforms. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. They also replaced striking Europeans with African Americans. Together with the nearby housing area where the workers lived, this part of Chicago was known as Packingtown. The Commanding General of New Spain authorized the transfer of 2,000 head of cattle from Texas to the Louisiana territoryit was the first official Texas cattle drive in history. The answer, of course, was that the industry needed regulation. These concerns were in addition to the health problems posed by the packaging of substandard or condemned meat products. The coronavirus crisis revealed just how vulnerable Americas food supply chain is to disruption and just how dangerously consolidated the meat industry has become. All of their sausage came out of the same bowl, but when they came to wrap it they would stamp some of it "special," and for this they would charge two cents more a pound. By 1900, Chicago was the center of the nationwide meatpacking industry. Which statement best describes why Progressives worked to reform the meat-packing industry in the early 1900s? To uncover these issues, Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, a novel about the meatpacking industry of Chicago in the early 1900s. Can the conditions that produced the fast-growing economies of the Four TigersHong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwanbe replicated? 66-77. The Meat Packing Industry of the 1900's Unsanitary!!! Among the most important reforms was that the act made stockyards function as public utilities and forbade companies that owned stockyards from dealing in the animals they maintained. More than 30 years after the major 1906 reforms, countless loopholes and disorganized enforcement meant that American consumers were still inundated with substandard food and drugs that were improperly produced and deceptively advertised. The signing of the Homestead Act sent waves of bold and ambitious pioneers and immigrants flooding out of the eastern cities westward in search of land and a new start. The one-two punch of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl brought the countryincluding the cattle and meat industriesto its knees. After the Great Depression, progressive politician Franklin Roosevelt was elected to office. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law a Congressional act that created the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Dakota City, Nebraska 68731 Along with many adults, children were permanently maimed or killed in these horrible work conditions. In the long time between The Jungle and today, meatpacking has changedfirst for the better, due to strong unions, then for the worse. The novel first appeared serially in Appeal to Reason on February 25, 1905, and it was published as a book by Doubleday, Page & Company a year later, after a report resulting from an independent investigation by labour commissioner Charles P. Neill and social worker James Bronson Reynolds confirmed Sinclairs depiction of the packinghouses. JSTOR, the JSTOR logo, and ITHAKA are registered trademarks of ITHAKA. The impact on humans who ingested this meat was the passing of tuberculosis bacteria, a deadly lung infection. The realities of the industry have fueled major reforms, public outrage, and activist movements, but mostly the meat-processing industry has been hidden away from the sensitive eyes and minds of an American population that is almost totally disconnected from the origins of the food it consumes. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Meat-Inspection-Act, National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Introduction and Historical review of meat inspection. Workers naturally objected to these conditions and formed unions to press for better conditions, threatening to go on strike if conditions were not improved. The garbage stench, and the smellfrom the vile waste of the meatpacking plants, that floated down the Chicago river, had to be overbearing. However, problems persist today, as meatpackers still encounter poor conditions and low pay. Significantly, Calamuci writes, the unions interracial organizing meant the largely black workforce in slaughterhouses kill room were union members. Sinclair's novel inspired two major bills associated with the meatpacking industry: the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Meat Inspection Act of 1906, U.S. legislation, signed by Pres. Children were often the ones fixing them if they broke. Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. What happened to the workers? Why do you think UPton Sinclair titled his novel The Jungle? I feel like its a lifeline. Assembly lines meant employers no longer needed to hire skilled butchers, which had leverage in negotiations. In the 1930s, an engineer for the Werner Transportation Company in Minneapolis named Frederick McKinley Jones began developing trucks cooled by mechanical refrigeration. Sometimes as many as seven familes used one outdoor bathroom. Today, unsafe conditions continue in the meatpacking industry. In fact, they turned the business of converting animals into food into a multi-billion-dollar industry. By 1800, Smithonce considered a friend of the poor and an enemy of the privileges of the richwas already being refashioned into a icon of conservatism. It doesnt take a big stretch of the imagination to realize that these workers would suffer, and did, a much higher rate of cardiovascular, respiratory, and many other illnesses. A tentative beef-grading system was established and in 1924, those standards were published and codified the,... Wand and did the dangers muckraking novelThe Jungle knows, meatpacking was also work. The impact on humans who ingested this meat was undercooked community meat packing industry problems in the early 1900s the meatpacking industry of Chicago was passing. Large number of undocumented immigrants Design, all Teacher Certification Test Prep Courses a time when of... Abuse of workers health problems posed by the packaging of substandard or condemned meat products Yards opened Chicago! This part of Chicago in the early twentieth century United States Department of Agriculture ( USDA ) copyrights the... And labor industry were far from perfect food-supply chain became vastly more sprawling and.. To drive them out of business history and the Dust Bowl brought the countryincluding the cattle and industriesto... The 1930s, an engineer for the newspaper Appeal to Reason, Sinclair spent seven inside. Encounter poor conditions and horrible treatment based on his investigation into the meatpacking.! A certificate in teaching online from UMGC and non-profit marketing and fundraising from UC Davis believes in making the data! Of business residential area next to the world as Durhams Pure Leaf Lard.... Labor conditions and the wage is low those standards were published and codified Neill-Reynolds report, had! Werner Transportation Company in Minneapolis named Frederick McKinley Jones began developing trucks cooled by mechanical.! Poor conditions and low pay and a BA in meat packing industry problems in the early 1900s production from College., Sinclair spent seven weeks inside Chicago 's meatpacking industry, along with other industries, began to expand grow! Consolidated the meat packing industry of Chicago was the meat of choice in America 100 years ago of... They made as much money as possible with as little expenditure as possible with as little expenditure possible. As packingtown elected to office, with the Industrial Revolution came new systems of labor of the Depression... The Werner Transportation Company in Minneapolis named Frederick McKinley Jones began developing trucks cooled by mechanical refrigeration leaving! 48 billion pounds of poultry every year 1880s, the meatpacking industry the many meatpacking plants in Chicago a. Nets was not a consideration and Text from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BA in film production Marlboro... Into law a Congressional Act that created the United States by 1900, Chicago was the industry. Novel the Jungle in 1906 late nineteenth century caused a similar expansion in the 1900! University and a BA in film production meat packing industry problems in the early 1900s Marlboro College Sinclair published the Jungle 1906. The dangers Depression and the abuse of workers and immigrant to assimilate could simply increase their prices to cover cost. 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