"The Jungle" followed four poorly selling novels that received little attention. Sinclair began writing the book after accepting a $500 advance from "Appeal to Reason," a weekly socialist newspaper to which he'd begun contributing, "Mother Jones" states. Sinclair spent several weeks talking with workers and union organizers in Chicago's Packingtown district, where he also watched meatpacking plant and slaughterhouse operations closely. Six publishers rejected "The Jungle" as too grim until Doubleday, Page & Co. accepted it in February 1906.
Throughout "The Jungle," Sinclair describes meatpacking industry conditions as a symptom of deeper social ills. Meatpacking workers and their families crowded into cheap, unsanitary housing that resulted in various mental and physical illness among the poor, the Chicago Historical Society's website indicates. Men and women toiled in grinding, fatiguing jobs -- sometimes, beside their children -- for 10- to 12-hour days and low wages. With little formal education and lack of fluency in English, Jurgis seems destined for the same fate.
Like other immigrants, Jurgis tires of working for mere pennies an hour. He joins a union, only to confront an equally corrupt, arbitrary environment, as Penguin.com's study guide notes. Jurgis is then jailed for assaulting a plant foreman who forces his wife to exploit herself sexually. In short order, he loses his home, wife and son due to his stressful, poverty-stricken lifestyle. Dispirited by his losses, he leaves Chicago to wander the Midwest. He eventually returns home and finds new hope in the emerging socialist movement.
Meat sales dropped sharply after "The Jungle"'s publication, prompting President Theodore Roosevelt to appoint a special commission to study the issue, according to the Constitutional Rights Foundation. A subsequent report confirmed Sinclair's descriptions of the industry. The momentum enabled Roosevelt in June 1906 to sign the Meat Inspection Act -- which authorized inspectors to intercept sales of bad or mislabeled meat -- and the Pure Food and Drug Act, intended to crack down on mislabeled food and drugs.
The expansion of federal regulatory power led to the formation of a new agency, the FDA, tasked with monitoring meatpacking industry practices. This approach failed to satisfy Sinclair, who favored the European model of public ownership of businesses, the CRF's analysis states. He also voiced dismay at public emphasis on his novel's descriptions of meatpacking conditions, rather than the workers' lot. Even so, "The Jungle" is still considered a prime example of how literature can prompt social change.