Upton Sinclair (1878 - 1968)

Fri Sep 20, 1878

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Upton Sinclair Jr., born on this day in 1878, was an American writer and journalist who wrote nearly 100 books across multiple genres, most notably “The Jungle”, which exposed brutal working conditions in the Chicago meatpacking industry.

Sinclair was an outspoken socialist, and his books depicted difficult working conditions of the laboring class, scandalizing them with the broader public.

Sinclair was inspired to write “The Jungle” after spending six months researching the Chicago meatpacking industry. His descriptions of the unsanitary and inhumane conditions that workers suffered shocked and galvanized its readers to such a degree that domestic and foreign purchases of American meat to fall by half and federal regulations of the meat industry increased.

Sinclair also discriminated against people of color and Jewish people. With income from “The Jungle”, he founded a utopian community called “Helicon Home Colony” in Englewood, New Jersey, explicitly excluding both black and Jewish people. The colony burned down under suspicious circumstances within a year.

In the 1920s, Sinclair moved to Monrovia, California (near Los Angeles), where he founded the state’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In 1934, Sinclair ran in the California gubernatorial election as a Democrat.

Sinclair’s platform, known as the End Poverty in California movement (EPIC), galvanized the support of the Democratic Party. Sinclair gained its nomination, but was defeated by the incumbent Frank Merriam.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

- Upton Sinclair