Answer: Upton Sinclair’s February 1906 novel The Jungle, an exposé of the Chicago meatpacking industry.
Upton Sinclair, one of the most prominent writers later derided as “muckrakers” by Theodore Roosevelt, was born on September 20, 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Read a brief biography from C-Span’s “American Writers” series.
A poster of the 1913 movie adaptation of Sinclair’s novel is pictured at right, courtesy of the Sinclair Archives, Lilly Library, Indiana University, through James Harvey Young’s Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906.
According to the Food and Drug Administration’s official website:
In fact, the nauseating condition of the meat-packing industry that Upton Sinclair captured in The Jungle was the final precipitating force behind both a meat inspection law and a comprehensive food and drug law.
The law was passed in June 1906 and signed by President Theodore Roosevelt.
Theodore Roosevelt (Photo Source: NobelPrize.org)
Read more about the “muckrakers” in the Progressive Era in Don’t Know Much About® History.
Don’t Know Much About® History: Anniversary Edition (Harper Perennial and Random House Audio)
