The jungle / Upton Sinclair

This angry novel created a furor when it was originally published in 1906. The author painfully details the sorrows of a Lithuanian immigrant family working in Chicago's meat-packing plants during the bad old days before worker's compensation and disability, unemployment insurance, social security, fair labor practices, and court-appointed lawyers. In addition to losing their home, the family endure the deaths of a grandfather, an uncle, a child, a mother and her second child (in childbirth), the older children (to the streets), and finally the cherished firstborn son. By exposing the horribly unsanitary practices in the plants, this novel prompted federal legislators to protect the public from unsafe meat.

English.