Upton Sinclair: Difference between revisions

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In 1906, Sinclair acquired particular fame for his classic muck-raking novel, ''[[The Jungle]]'', which exposed labor and sanitary conditions in the U.S. [[meatpacking industry]], causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 [[Pure Food and Drug Act]] and the [[Meat Inspection Act]].<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.hsus.org/farm/news/ournews/the_jungle_roar.html |title=The Jungle: Upton Sinclair's Roar Is Even Louder to Animal Advocates Today |date= March 10, 2006 |access-date=June 10, 2010 |url-status=dead| work=hsus.org| publisher= [[The Humane Society of the United States]] |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100106223608/http://www.hsus.org/farm/news/ournews/the_jungle_roar.html |archive-date=January 6, 2010 }}</ref> In 1919, he published ''[[The Brass Check]]'', a muck-raking [[Exposé (journalism)|exposé]] of American journalism that publicized the issue of [[yellow journalism]] and the limitations of the "free press" in the United States. Four years after publication of ''The Brass Check'', the first [[code of ethics]] for journalists was created.<ref>{{cite web| title= Upton Sinclair | via= PBworks.com | url = http://pressinamerica.pbworks.com/w/page/18360241/Upton%20Sinclair | work= Press in America}}.</ref> [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]] called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence".<ref name=timebelle>{{cite magazine| magazine= Time | url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,868072,00.html | title= Books: Uppie's Goddess | date = November 18, 1957 |url-status= dead| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120328054851/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,868072,00.html| archive-date= March 28, 2012| access-date = May 11, 2020}}.</ref> He is also well remembered for the quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."<ref name= licked>{{cite book |last=Sinclair |first=Upton |date=1994 |title=I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OqqpXJy-fRwC&pg=PA109 |location=Berkeley |publisher=University of California Press |page=109 |isbn=978-0-520-08197-0 |ref={{sfnRef|''I, Candidate for Governor''}}}}</ref> He used this line in speeches and the book about his campaign for governor as a way to explain why the editors and publishers of the major newspapers in California would not treat seriously his proposals for old age pensions and other progressive reforms.<ref name= licked /> Many of his novels can be read as historical works. Writing during the [[Progressive Era]], Sinclair describes the world of the industrialized United States from both the working man's and the industrialist's points of view. Novels such as ''[[King Coal]]'' (1917), ''[[The Coal War]]'' (published posthumously), ''[[Oil!]]'' (1927), and ''[[The Flivver King]]'' (1937) describe the working conditions of the coal, oil, and auto industries at the time.