Upton Beall Sinclair (1878-1968) Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 20, 1878 and died in Bound Brook, New Jersey November 25, 1968 (Harte 2). Sinclair’s father was a salesman in wholesale liquor, and forgot to leave his work at home. Upton reacted to his family life by teaching himself how to read at the age of five (Harte 2). Five years later the liquor business folded, and Sinclair’s father moved the family to New York to start a hat business (Literature Online 1). Upton began writing juvenile work and comic strips to support himself through school. However, Upton continued to experience a rough home life. In the 1900’s he, “found himself increasingly hostile towards both parents [...] disillusioned by the stupidity, hypocrisy, greed and venality he saw all about him at Columbia and in politics,” (Harris 38). Consequently, he dropped out of Columbia University at headed for isolation in Quebec, Canada. What transformed from this period of learning was the socialist and author who aimed his work at transforming political institutions. Many believe that Sinclair’s work, “belongs less to the history of literature than to that of American socialism and Utopianism; to him the novel was merely a journalistic weapon,” (Literature Online 1). Sinclair wrote on a wide array of subjects, but it is perhaps his political aims that he will be best remembered for. Accordingly, his book The Jungle provoked the change that Sinclair sought to achieve in his writing. Upton achieved this goal by his zest for change and his political connections. In 1905, the same year the book was published, Sinclair and other socialists created the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. In 1904, the editor of a socialist journal, Appeal to Reason, commissioned Sinclair to write a novel concerning immigrant workers in the meat packing industry. The Jungle’s content which, “demonstrated that the Beef Trust was keeping the wages of it employees down to a bare minimum, [and that], “the Trust was knowingly selling diseased beef to the public” (Literature Online 2) instigated an investigation. The results brought about two laws, the Pure Food and Drug Act (1905) and Meat Inspection Act (1906). Furthermore, The Jungle provoked President Roosevelt to deem investigative journalists and authors as muckrakers. Muckrakers is defined as, “a group of American writers who between 1902 and 1911 worked to expose the dishonest methods and unscrupulous motives in big business and in city, state, and national government,” (Harmon and Holman 331). Besides writing books Sinclair ran for governor of California, but lost twice. His second attempt came during the depression in the 1930’s and Sinclair’s plan to end poverty in California (EPIC) won him the nomination of the socialist part and a spot in history. Upton Sinclair was married three times, and had one child. He won the Pulitzer prize in 1943 for Dragons teeth and was nominated but lost a few year prior to that (Literature Resource Center 2).
Related Websites
Upton Sinclair web site
SFMuseum-EPIC
Upton Sinclair Bio
Uptotn's work
Copy of Sinclair's EPIC
