Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel The Jungle is often cited as the quintessential muckraking text that spurred political leaders to clean up the American meat industry with remarkable scope and speed. But as a work of political fiction, not journalism, how reliable was Sinclair's depiction of the Chicago Union Stock Yards? In this lesson, students investigate by analyzing excerpts of The Jungle, as well as a business owner's defense of the stock yards and an inspection report commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt.