1900-1920

[Upton Sinclair popular author of the 20th century]

The early 1900's was the beginning of not only a political movement, but health and sanitation for America. Believe it or not this movement was a revolution in itself. It turned America's old habits all the way around building new laws and a foundation for itself.This was a time when children worked a normal 9 to 5 job, people lived in slums, and sanitation just was not a concern to those trying to make a living. But, to some out there sanitation was a problem and they were determined to fix it.

The word muckraker is said to have originated from the great president Theodore Roosevelt. He coined this word during a speech in 1906 while comparing them to "The Man with the Muckrake" in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. In this same year, Upton Sinclair came out with his famous book "The Jungle." It focused on the conditions of filth in the meat packing industry. It also talked about the wages people were making and how the political parties were doing nothing to help.

It took a few tries for him to get the book published, but once it was it immediately became a best-seller. Although his original intent was to open peoples eyes to the low wages and working conditions, food safety became the main focus of others. In his book, Sinclair talked about the dissapearance of workers and how many of them that fell into rendering vats were left and sold as lard. After this book came out, many inspection and regulation laws were made. This made food and safety so much better. In the end, Sinclair did not reach his goal on wages, but he did open Americans eyes to the filth and danger of meats and factories.

[Sinclairs published book]

[new inspection laws]