Muckraking Literature




Muckraking authors aimed to catalyze their audiences into action through the portrayal of outrages taking place within America. Upton Sinclair, one of the movement's premier author, remains as a prime example of the remarkable effect an author can have on politics. In 1906, Sinclair published The Jungle, a nauseating and poignant story of the miserable existence of a Lithuanian immigrant working in the Chicago meatpacking industry at the turn of the 20th Century. Painting a picture of extreme poverty, corruption, racism, a lack of worker's rights or basic concern for human life, Sinclair made the occurences in these factories undeniable and impossible to ignore. The book contained many nauseating anecdotes such as rats being thrown into the sausage grinder, bribed inspectors overlooking diseased cows, and guts and waste being swept off the floor and sold as "potted ham."