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I have read a lot about Upton Sinclair but never heard the criticism that his novel was unrealistic. References? On the other hand, the inspectors assigned by

I have read a lot about Upton Sinclair but never heard the criticism that his novel was unrealistic. References? On the other hand, the inspectors assigned by President Roosevelt at the time… > Learning about the visit, owners had their workers thoroughly clean the factories prior to the inspection, but [Labor Commissioner Charles P. Neill and social worker James Bronson Reynolds] were still revolted by the conditions. Their oral report to Roosevelt supported much of what Sinclair portrayed in the novel... And Teddy Roosevelt apparently hated Sinclair, so somehow I trust his employees finding more than I trust you, random hackernewser. >... excepting the claim of workers falling into rendering vats… And as for that last bit, is it made up? Surely considering how many workers have accidentally been killed in other "crazy" accidents involving falling-into-stuff (e.g. ammonia/effluent holding tanks), which have been documented, it's not far fetched to believe that in an abusive, unsafe, and unsanitary environment, at least one person has died that way. So, I'm left with only one conclusion: You're making stuff up.

glenra 13y ago
> I have read a lot about Upton Sinclair but never heard the criticism that his novel was unrealistic. References? Try this summary: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/of-meat-and-myth http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/of-meat-and-myth A few paragraphs relevant to what you just wrote: historians with an ideological axe to grind against the market usually ignore an authoritative 1906 report of the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Animal Husbandry. Its investigators provided a point-by-point refutation of the worst of Sinclair’s allegations, some of which they labeled as “willful and deliberate misrepresentations of fact,” “atrocious exaggeration,” and “not at all characteristic.” Instead, some of these same historians dwell on the Neill-Reynolds Report of the same year because it at least tentatively supported Sinclair. It turns out that neither Neill nor Reynolds had any experience in the meat-packing business and spent a grand total of two and a half weeks in the spring of 1906 investigating and preparing what turned out to be a carelessly written report with predetermined conclusions. Gabriel Kolko, a socialist but nonetheless a historian with a respect for facts, dismisses Sinclair as a propagandist and assails Neill and Reynolds as “two inexperienced Washington bureaucrats who freely admitted they knew nothing” of the meat-packing process. Their own subsequent testimony revealed that they had gone to Chicago with the intention of finding fault with industry practices so as to get a new inspection law passed. According to the popular myth, there were no government inspectors before Congress acted in response to The Jungle, and the greedy meat packers fought federal inspection all the way. The truth is that not only did government inspection exist, but meat packers themselves supported it and were in the forefront of the effort to extend it so as to ensnare their smaller, unregulated competitors. Oh, and the fact that to you "it's not far fetched to believe" something does not constitute evidence for it. :-)
- ahoyhere 13y ago
  Uncited statements from a magazine that a mission to promote free market ideology isn't a very good citation at all. On the other hand, here's President Roosevelt's own speech about the matter: http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/txtspeeches/963.pdf http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/txtspeeche... "Under existing law the National Government has no power to enforce inspection of the many forms of Prepared meat food products that are daily going from the packing houses into interstate commmerce. Owing to an inadequate apropriation the Department of Agriculture is not even able to place inspectors in all establishments desiring them. The present law prohibits the shipment of uninspected meat to foreign countries, but there is no provision for inspected meats in interstate commerce, and thus the avenues of interstate commerce are left open to traffic in diseased or spoiled meats." This from the mouth of a President who thought Sinclair was a socialist jackass. So, which source to trust… a first-hand source, who hired the inspectors and commissioned the report, who ran the country and was presumably informed about legal jurisdiction, who thought the original author was a jackass… or a magazine that has its mission statement to promote free market ideology 50 years later?
  - glenra 13y ago
    (HN weirdness - I couldn't "reply" to you a moment ago and now I can. Oh well...I'll recap what I wrote above.) Here is the report on FEE relied - it was, in my opinion, accurately represented by FEE's summary: http://books.google.com/books?id=xGU-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA350 http://books.google.com/books?id=xGU-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA350 I'm not claiming Upton Sinclair's claims were unrealistic, I'm just claiming they were false. He said stuff that clearly was not true. The stuff about rats and dried rat dung going into the meat: false. The stuff about workers falling into the vat and, again, becoming part of the meat: false. (there actually was one case one time of somebody falling into the vat, but the body was recovered and buried, not turned into sausage.) Sinclair clearly invented stuff in order to entertainingly disgust his readers, which makes him an unreliable narrator, not a valid witness. The fact that the government introduced new inspection laws to reassure the nauseated populace doesn't mean the guy whose lies nauseated them was correct. Nor does the fact that Roosevelt, like any politician, liked taking credit for the laws he signed and making grandiose claims for how much good those laws were likely to do.

glenra 13y ago

> I have read a lot about Upton Sinclair but never heard the criticism that his novel was unrealistic. References? Try this summary: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/of-meat-and-myth http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/of-meat-and-myth A few paragraphs relevant to what you just wrote: historians with an ideological axe to grind against the market usually ignore an authoritative 1906 report of the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Animal Husbandry. Its investigators provided a point-by-point refutation of the worst of Sinclair’s allegations, some of which they labeled as “willful and deliberate misrepresentations of fact,” “atrocious exaggeration,” and “not at all characteristic.” Instead, some of these same historians dwell on the Neill-Reynolds Report of the same year because it at least tentatively supported Sinclair. It turns out that neither Neill nor Reynolds had any experience in the meat-packing business and spent a grand total of two and a half weeks in the spring of 1906 investigating and preparing what turned out to be a carelessly written report with predetermined conclusions. Gabriel Kolko, a socialist but nonetheless a historian with a respect for facts, dismisses Sinclair as a propagandist and assails Neill and Reynolds as “two inexperienced Washington bureaucrats who freely admitted they knew nothing” of the meat-packing process. Their own subsequent testimony revealed that they had gone to Chicago with the intention of finding fault with industry practices so as to get a new inspection law passed. According to the popular myth, there were no government inspectors before Congress acted in response to The Jungle, and the greedy meat packers fought federal inspection all the way. The truth is that not only did government inspection exist, but meat packers themselves supported it and were in the forefront of the effort to extend it so as to ensnare their smaller, unregulated competitors. Oh, and the fact that to you "it's not far fetched to believe" something does not constitute evidence for it. :-)

ahoyhere 13y ago
Uncited statements from a magazine that a mission to promote free market ideology isn't a very good citation at all. On the other hand, here's President Roosevelt's own speech about the matter: http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/txtspeeches/963.pdf http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/txtspeeche... "Under existing law the National Government has no power to enforce inspection of the many forms of Prepared meat food products that are daily going from the packing houses into interstate commmerce. Owing to an inadequate apropriation the Department of Agriculture is not even able to place inspectors in all establishments desiring them. The present law prohibits the shipment of uninspected meat to foreign countries, but there is no provision for inspected meats in interstate commerce, and thus the avenues of interstate commerce are left open to traffic in diseased or spoiled meats." This from the mouth of a President who thought Sinclair was a socialist jackass. So, which source to trust… a first-hand source, who hired the inspectors and commissioned the report, who ran the country and was presumably informed about legal jurisdiction, who thought the original author was a jackass… or a magazine that has its mission statement to promote free market ideology 50 years later?
- glenra 13y ago
  (HN weirdness - I couldn't "reply" to you a moment ago and now I can. Oh well...I'll recap what I wrote above.) Here is the report on FEE relied - it was, in my opinion, accurately represented by FEE's summary: http://books.google.com/books?id=xGU-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA350 http://books.google.com/books?id=xGU-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA350 I'm not claiming Upton Sinclair's claims were unrealistic, I'm just claiming they were false. He said stuff that clearly was not true. The stuff about rats and dried rat dung going into the meat: false. The stuff about workers falling into the vat and, again, becoming part of the meat: false. (there actually was one case one time of somebody falling into the vat, but the body was recovered and buried, not turned into sausage.) Sinclair clearly invented stuff in order to entertainingly disgust his readers, which makes him an unreliable narrator, not a valid witness. The fact that the government introduced new inspection laws to reassure the nauseated populace doesn't mean the guy whose lies nauseated them was correct. Nor does the fact that Roosevelt, like any politician, liked taking credit for the laws he signed and making grandiose claims for how much good those laws were likely to do.