# Did Sinclair lewis ("THE JUNGLE") Lie? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 15, 2007, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135 "2007-06-15T17:37:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/1 "2007-06-15T17:37:07Z")
…about the Chicago meatpacking industry? Quite apart from the apalling accusations (i.e. that rotten meat was being sold to consumers), the mistreatment of the workers was bad enough. The late Milton Friedman claimed the book was mostly propaganda-he couldn’t see why the meat industry would willingly poison its customers. So, was lewis accurately reporting tjhings, or was this mostly socialist propaganda? It’s hard for me to belive that meat companies would get away with this sort of thing for long-people would stop buying the products. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/2 "2007-06-15T17:41:49Z")
Sinclair Lewis would have lied if he had even claimed to have written _The Jungle_ at all. That was Upton Sinclair. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/3 "2007-06-15T17:42:59Z")
Apparently there are many folks who feel it’s not in great shape even today: > **[NOW on PBS | PBS](https://www.pbs.org/show/now-on-pbs/)** > > Independent journalism investigating today's national and international issues. > **[Meat-packing industry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_packing_industry)** > > The meat-packing industry (also spelled meatpacking industry or meat packing industry) handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of meat from animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock. Poultry is generally not included. This greater part of the entire meat industry is primarily focused on producing meat for human consumption, but it also yields a variety of by-products including hides, dried blood, protein meals such as meat & bone meal, and, through the proc... ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/4 "2007-06-15T17:44:18Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] The late Milton Friedman claimed the book was mostly propaganda-he couldn’t see why the meat industry would willingly poison its customers. [/quote] And the tobacco industry? It is possible to market an unsafe product without destroying your customer base – just so long as it is not so unsafe as to kill every consumer immediately. And it is often highly profitable – more so than producing a safer product at higher production costs. [QUOTE=ralph124c] It’s hard for me to belive that meat companies would get away with this sort of thing for long-people would stop buying the products. [/QUOTE] Look, if you’re a working-class American of that period, and you like sausage, and you have a choice between an industrially produced sausage that might have rat feces in it and a sausage made by a trusted local butcher that costs a lot more . . . well, do the math. And remember, the latter might not even be an option where you live. We have “organic” foods available as an option in supermarkets nowadays, but only a minority of the customers buy them. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/5 "2007-06-15T17:44:23Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Sinclair Lewis would have lied if he had even claimed to have written _The Jungle_ at all. That was Upton Sinclair. 😉 [/QUOTE] You are right! :o ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/6 "2007-06-15T17:46:55Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] You are right! :o [/QUOTE] I often get them confused too. (Based on what I read in _It Can’t Happen Here,_ BTW, Lewis had very little respect for Sinclair, who plays a minor and not admirable role in the story as a political dupe of the Corpos – and who is the only real person I can recall being used as a character in the book.) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/7 "2007-06-15T17:53:17Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I often get them confused too. (Based on what I read in _It Can’t Happen Here,_ BTW, Lewis had very little respect for Sinclair, who plays a minor and not admirable role in the story as a political dupe of the Corpos – and who is the only real person I can recall being used as a character in the book.) [/QUOTE] He would have been in a position to form an opinion. Lewis lived for some time at Sinclair’s socialist commune, where he worked as a janitor. Perhaps what he saw firsthand he didn’t like much. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/8 "2007-06-15T18:08:50Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] and who is the only real person I can recall being used as a character in the book [/QUOTE] FDR, Fr. Coughlin, Huey Long, Landon, I think. They may not have had as big a role as Sinclair, but the book built on the U.S. society of 1935, employing several real persons. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/9 "2007-06-15T18:28:15Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] Quite apart from the appalling accusations (i.e. that rotten meat was being sold to consumers), the mistreatment of the workers was bad enough. [/QUOTE] Sinclair wrote _The Jungle_ to highlight the latter, but made the mistake of including five or six pages about the former. His readers fixated on those five or six pages, since middle and upper-class readers could relate to being poisoned more easily than they could relate to immigrant labor problems. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Look, if you’re a working-class American of that period, and you like sausage, and you have a choice between an industrially produced sausage that might have rat feces in it and a sausage made by a trusted local butcher that costs a lot more . . . well, do the math. That’s exactly right. At the time, cheap factory-produced meat for urban laborers was a new and wonderful thing. In earlier times, lower- and middle-class urbanites didn’t have nearly as much meat in their diets. If the meat contained rat dung, well, that’s what immune systems were for, and it was better than eating bread and corn meal all the time. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/10 "2007-06-15T18:54:35Z")
Jack in the Box sold contaminated meat and killed a few customers. Fast food burgers are alive and well. Jack in the Box is still in business.In my area a mexican restaurant killed several customers. They changed their name and business goes on. Short term risks to get profits are worth the risk. Food inspection should be increased. The FDA has been gutted. ---
**Author:** ![Renob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8c91f0/32.png) [@Renob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renob)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/11 "2007-06-15T19:10:57Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] We have “organic” foods available as an option in supermarkets nowadays, but only a minority of the customers buy them. [/QUOTE] Probably because organic foods are no healthier than conventional foods. > [@gonzomax](#): > > Jack in the Box sold contaminated meat and killed a few customers. Fast food burgers are alive and well. Jack in the Box is still in business.In my area a mexican restaurant killed several customers. They changed their name and business goes on. Short term risks to get profits are worth the risk. What happened at Jack in the Box wasn’t even close to what was described in _The Jungle_. The Jack in the Box incident was accidental undercooking of hamburgers. They did not set out to undercook them on purpose as part of a diabolical plot to poison consumers as you seem to think. > [@](#): > > The FDA has been gutted. Cite, please. As to the OP, I have read in places that there was no evidence to support Sinclair’s contention about food contamination. Does anyone know of any place that discusses the meat packing industry at the turn of the century that could either prove or disprove Sinclair’s portrait? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/12 "2007-06-15T19:11:57Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax] Food inspection should be increased. The FDA has been gutted. [/QUOTE] You do realize the one has no bearing on the other, don’t you. Nearly all actual food inspection is performed by the Department of Agriculture and by state and local authorities. The FDA is much more of a policy body. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/13 "2007-06-15T19:18:48Z")
My grandparents and great grandparents worked in the meat packing houses of St. Paul. My father was young, but has heard the stories. When I read The Jungle he thought it was pretty true to the stories his grandfather had told him. It was HARSH work with few quality controls. But its been years since I read The Jungle. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/14 "2007-06-15T19:33:00Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] It’s hard for me to belive that meat companies would get away with this sort of thing for long-people would stop buying the products. [/QUOTE] I believe the meat industry’s unsanitary practices were not widely known to the general public – **until** Sinclair published _The Jungle._ And then and only then came consumer reaction and government action. So the argument that “he must have been a liar because what he described was too horrible to be tolerated” really doesn’t fly. It is really not that hard for industries to keep dirty secrets when there are no muckraking journalists nor government inspectors around. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/15 "2007-06-15T21:26:07Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] It is possible to market an unsafe product without destroying your customer base – just so long as it is not so unsafe as to kill every consumer immediately. [/QUOTE] See “Food manufacture in modern China.” ---
**Author:** ![everywill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@everywill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everywill)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/16 "2007-06-15T22:23:04Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] And the tobacco industry? It is possible to market an unsafe product without destroying your customer base – just so long as it is not so unsafe as to kill every consumer immediately. And it is often highly profitable – more so than producing a safer product at higher production costs. Look, if you’re a working-class American of that period, and you like sausage, and you have a choice between an industrially produced sausage that might have rat feces in it and a sausage made by a trusted local butcher that costs a lot more . . . well, do the math. And remember, the latter might not even be an option where you live. We have “organic” foods available as an option in supermarkets nowadays, but only a minority of the customers buy them. [/QUOTE] All of which pokes gaping holes in conservative/libertarian theory. Companies don’t lose any business over subtle infractions, only major errors. People just don’t care enough. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2007, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/17 "2007-06-16T03:47:38Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] The late Milton Friedman claimed the book was mostly propaganda-he couldn’t see why the meat industry would willingly poison its customers. [/QUOTE] I hope he was misquoted. That has to be one of the silliest logical extrapolations I have read–certainly the stupidest attributed to Friedman. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2007, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/18 "2007-06-17T03:04:04Z")
I’d like to see some solid evidence that Sinclair made up his claims about unsafe meatpacking industry practices. At about the same time there were vast quantities of patent medicines sold to the public, most of them ineffective, others addictive and some toxic. Would the patent medicine industry set out to “poison” its customers? All it apparently took was a reckless intent to make money without caring too much about marginal practices, without any fear of government intervention. It’s my (somewhat dim) recollection that the Pure Food and Drug Act (of 1904?) was passed not just because of Sinclair’s revelations but due to indications of shady and unsafe doings in a number of industries. And by the way, it wasn’t just rat feces and garbage that supposedly ended up in food products made in Chicago. There was the unsettling idea that the occasional unwary worker tumbling into a vat wound up on the market as Pure Leaf Lard. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2007, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/19 "2007-06-17T03:27:33Z")
[QUOTE=Jackmannii] And by the way, it wasn’t just rat feces and garbage that supposedly ended up in food products made in Chicago. There was the unsettling idea that the occasional unwary worker tumbling into a vat wound up on the market as Pure Leaf Lard. :eek: [/QUOTE] I also recall a passage from _The Jungle_ (quoted in the standard high-school American history text, _The American Pageant)_ that they tried to control the rats by setting out poisoned bread for them – and when they found dead rats in the morning, the rats **and** the bread went into the sausage hoppers. I **hope** the OP is right to extent that Sinclair made up that bit, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. I’d rather have human flesh in my sausage than rat poison. (Well, actually, I’d rather have human flesh in my sausage, period, but that discussion belongs in CS or IMHO. 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2007, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135/20 "2007-06-17T03:40:07Z")
[QUOTE=Renob] What happened at Jack in the Box wasn’t even close to what was described in _The Jungle_. The Jack in the Box incident was accidental undercooking of hamburgers. They did not set out to undercook them on purpose as part of a diabolical plot to poison consumers as you seem to think. [/QUOTE] Ah…Not all of us like our beef cooked completely into oblivion and some of us have even been known to eat it raw on occasion. (Try [“gored gored”](http://www.ethiopianrestaurant.com/dishes/gored_gored.html) [better picture [here](http://cityguide.courier-journal.com/fe/RestaurantReviews/reviewphotos/queenofsheba.jpg)] in an Ethiopian restaurant sometime…Very yummy!!!) I think the underlying problem was that the meat was contaminated. Cooking it into oblivion might have destroyed the contamination but its hardly the only solution to the problem…and not one that all of us are keen on. And, having not read The Jungle, I can’t say for sure, but I imagine the problem there wasn’t a diabolical plot to poison consumers either. It was simply that the pressure to produce the product rapidly at the lowest possible price overwhelmed the pressure to make sure the product is healthy and uncontaminated. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sinclair-lewis-the-jungle-lie/408135.md?page=2)