Sinclair, Upton (Vol. 1) - Sinclair, Upton 1878–1968
Sinclair, Upton 1878–1968
An American muckraking novelist, Sinclair is best known for The Jungle, a novel which led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 5-8, rev. ed.; obituary, Vols. 25-28.)
The Jungle laid bare the unsanitary practices and unfair working conditions then existing in the meatpacking industry. President Theodore Roosevelt read the book, was greatly impressed, and ordered a federal investigation. The investigation supported the facts presented in Sinclair's novel and resulted in the passage of one of America's most highly prized pieces of legislation, The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, the cornerstone of modern American sanitation….
A good friend of Sinclair's, George Bernard Shaw, once said that when people asked him what had happened during his long lifetime, he referred them not to the newspaper files but to Sinclair's novels. Sinclair, indeed, was a...
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