The Effect of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in the Progressive Era

At the turn of the twentieth century, a group of American writers and journalists called the ‘muckrakers’ sought to expose the problems and growing inequalities in society. The muckraker with arguably the greatest impact was Upton Sinclair, whose influential novel, The Jungle, helped bring about extensive changes in food and drug regulation in the U.S. This paper will examine the influence of The Jungle and how the firestorm it created would lead to the passage of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.