3/26/01
U.S. History
The Jungle
By Upton Sinclair
Essay by Ben Jones
Jurgis begins his life in the United States of America in Packingtown, Illinois. He begins working at a meat packing plant. This factory process meat from pigs and cattle. The animals are kept in a pen outside the factory. This area is very unclean. Because of this disease runs rampant through this area. As the animals go to the slaughter house they go through an inspection. Although it is meant to filter out the sick animals, not every animal is checked for disease or infection. Those who are checked are not checked very well. Many of these animals are sick. When thy are brought into the slaughterhouse they spread the sickness to the other animals.
In the slaughterhouse the conditions got worse. As the animals are fed to the slaughter machine the blood runs to the center of the floor. To deal with this a worker would sweep up the extras and the blood. Jurgis had hisfirst job doing this. He got this job because the person before him got his arm caught in the slaughter machine. This is another problem in the factory. Things like body parts, rats, dirt, and other things would be caught in the machine and mixed in with the meat. This part of the factory was never really clean. There was always the threat of sickness from the animals and the remains that Jurgis swept up. The smell was also a problem. The stench was so bad that it was enough to make you sick. Poor ventilation kept this smell up. Poor lighting led to poor eyesight and more accidents and problems.
Because of the booming economy many new factories sprang up. This led to a drop in the price of manufactured goods. Increased availability of new farm equipment led to the buying of more farm equipment. Better tools, machines, seeds, and techniques led to the production of more food. This in turn drove up the amount of meat sent to the packing plant. As the price of the processed product, meat, went …