By Mark Harvis, MHM Vice President
President Lyndon Johnson greets Upton Sinclair in 1967 at the signing of a meat bill. Photo is in the public domain. I must admit I’m not an Upton Sinclair expert. Hardly. But I am familiar with "The Jungle,” which was published in 1905 and 1906. Sinclair intended his novel to expose the dire circumstances in which industrial laborers found themselves. Instead, the novel’s graphic description of unsafe and unsanitary conditions in the meat packing industry caused Congress to take action. It passed the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act, both in 1906. People were outraged and disgusted by what they read, leading to lasting changes to the food industry.
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