Immigrating into the Jungle

Jason Camacho

Introduction to American History

Immigrating into the Jungle

The Industrial Revolution assisted with a number of technological advancements and dramatically changed the way the United States views the workplace today. However, one cannot mention the Industrial Revolution without the mention of the role immigration played on it during that time. In Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, he attempts to persuade the American public of 1906 to relate and sympathize with the immigrants that compose the lower working class and push towards a more socialist society. Within the book, images of unsafe working conditions, long frustrating periods of unemployment, language barriers, and the signs of political corruption come together to paint a not-so-ideal view of what many immigrants entered into as they pursued the legendary “American Dream”. Yet, Sinclair manages to uncover many such issues within the telling of the story of one Lithuanian family that was torn apart for the sake of surviving in, what Sinclair argues, a corrupt Capitalist society. In turn, the popularity of the book played a pivotal role in effecting the standards of the food manufacturing industry and improving the quality of life of immigrant workers. Thus, in reading Sinclair’s book, one is moved to experience a very grueling lifestyle that more closely resembled a nightmare of constantly struggling like wild animals to survive.

It can be said that the industrial revolution was fueled by unskilled workers that came from European countries. Between 1820 and 1920 over 33 million people entered the ports of the United States. While there may have been a number of skilled workers that had arrived to the United States, it is widely believed that factories substituted skilled artisans with the division of labor of unskilled workers who specialized in a limited number of tasks (Kim, 2007). Thus, it seems logical that, during the time that Sinclair wrote his book, unskilled immigrant laborers were the dominant factory manufacturing labor force. In the early period of industrialization between 1820 and 1840, the pace of immigration was modest and most of the immigrants were skilled artisans and were considered relatively wealthy. In the transition period between the early to late industrialization, the rate of immigration rose dramatically and a great majority of immigrants were unskilled farmers, laborers and servants. Although the pace of immigration fluctuated and the sources of immigrants shifted from northwestern to central and southeastern Europe by the second industrial revolution, a majority of immigrants remained unskilled workers (Kim, 2007).

Within the book, Jurgis and his family travel from Lithuania to Chicago in the hopes of making a better life for themselves. He finds a new position working in the meatpacking factories within Chicago. His job is to sweep the entrails of the slaughtered animals through the trapdoor. However, Jurgis finds that his new experience working in the United States is not quite ideal. He is exposed to very dirty and unsanitary working conditions, despite the signs that supposedly assist in enforcing the sanitation rules of the facility. Sinclair graphically describes Jurgis’ observations as the meat of infected animal carcases are recycled and placed into sausage or mixed with healthy meat contained and sold in neatly disguised canned packages to the American public. Including member of his family, the working class immigrants often caught illness and died due to the unhealthy conditions they were exposed to within these factories. To further worsen the issue, many such workers who caught illnesses at