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Great Books on "The Jungle"

Added Feb 19, 2019 •

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episode of "Great Books" from TLC on "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair

Show Transcript

purnima Green family the American dream becomes a nightmare that spawns the factories the jails the olds offer up to the Sinclair risked his life Hotel Awful Truth About Chicago's Meat Packers the turn of the century the 20th century the place Chicago engagement party fills the air with the sounds of should be wed is older Lucas shape for Lithuanian Beauty relatives who have gambled on a new life in the New World David trone is yoga stretches the labourer from the old country owners read to Mary Yoder's if you would lead their moved to America the couple's relatives are the heart of the celebration marysia owner's cousin Survivor and incidents jurgis is Father determined the bull wait in the meat plants all or newer ones hoping to take part in the American dream what is some desperate disillusion guests at the party no is Newcomer are dreaming and tragically they are bump to a wake the Party begins Upton Sinclair's groundbreaking novel The Jungle with the jungle Sinclair targeted Meatpacking corporations for their Savage treatment of workers but Americans were outraged descriptions of factories that poison their food with deadly diseases I aim for the Public's heart Sinclair confessed but by accident hit in the stomach when his book hit really hit and it's one of those examples where ideas do make history at the time that the jungle was written the plants were horrible places to work they were full of violence they weren't clean and frequently diseased and dead animals were slaughtered and made into food it was a wake-up call for the country it was also the right book at the right time and American history up to that point in time to public hadn't really thought too much about the conditions of the meat that they were buying to Claremont for the jungle to sound the alarm about a crisis in the workplace that began in the 19th century America's economy and shifted from agriculture to Manufacturing the number of factory workers increased tenfold nice by these jobs nearly nine million immigrants entered the United States for the cost of food and household goods was showing and wages fell desperate for work the immigrants take jobs no one else one imagine the kind of picture they had of America and after seeing that beautiful Statue of Liberty play end up in slaughtering houses in these dark dank places with the butcher knives is slashing dead meat think about an individual coming from a rural agricultural kind of society what do you think about your guests coming from Lithuania or a black migrant coming from the deep south Mississippi coming into a large industrial city working in a mass production industry like meat packing Sinclair was riding on the crust of a Giant Wave of Social and economic change that took place in the course of the late 19th century the stream of animals was continuous it was quite uncanny to watch them pressing on to their fate go all unsuspicious a very River death due to his size you're just run to Bojangles here hope you sleep needs packing towns first challenge he finds a job the hours are long pain miserable on the pace what a worker groeschel or is injured his cast aside and hundreds of jobless men fight to replace it Airways live or die secret swim so the dead and conditions in the slaughtering house net debt that permeated also permeated the battle between the owners and they workers but in this case the Masters and the slaves because the conditions there were really slave like condition yorgensen doors are hardships without complaint Chili's put a down payment on masch house for owner antinous in their new home the immigrants share Tales of packing towns horse animals with broken back Cindy broken legs with horrible diseases I've never seen before when did inspector comes back from his tea or we are done with our Dirty Work a little late with Caveat Emptor let the buyer beware it was wide open there was absolutely no safety controls in place whatsoever you can virtually do ever you wanted in that factory it was out of sight out of mind your kisses father Antonis cleans the floors of a butchering plant explains how Phil from the floor is sold as canned meat the floor that catches all but the smoke spits where do the bad parts go I put them in a barrel but can't meet Upton Sinclair went into the plants and he dead animals being slaughtered he saw filth all over the plant he saw products going into sausage that shouldn't have been there but more importantly out of the plant radicalized by what happened to the workers how they got chewed up the same way the food did disguised as a workers Sinclair plunged into a modern human life was indescribably cheap men in the pickle rooms had their fingers eaten by acid those who work in the cooking room live in danger of falling into open Vats of boiling being cooked alive in his youth Sinclair shared something powerful with packing towns Expendable immigrants he was desperately poor we never had but one room at a time and I slept on a sofa or Crossways at the foot of my parents bed he was born in Baltimore on 1879 towards prosper Southern family his father was an alcoholic Who Sold whiskey and straw hats Sinclair grew up in cheap boarding houses and spent Boyhood hours combing bars even gutters delete is trunking hardship property cold and bed bugs and bed bug has all the time in writing Sinclair would blaze a trail for Consumer Advocates everywhere 99% of Americans are mediator consuming an average my points are waiting me each year we forget that in the 19 century meet became a production industry and became industrialized taken out of the home and taken into the factories 10 beat 1 experiments inconvenience and catastrophe around 1900 during the Spanish-American War some 1,000 died from tainted meat. who killed by the Spanish before the jungle was published in 1906 meat related deaths seem to be an inescapable fact of life according to the Centers for Disease Control there are 76 million cases of food poisoning in the United States every year 332,000 hospitalizations and 5000 deaths most of these deaths are caused by a bacteria called E coli o157 H7 it comes from cattle feces. Into the other houses there he gets into the me food safety is a shared responsibility it's got to start with the people who are growing the crops or raising animals the people who sell the product through a restaurant or through a grocery store have a responsibility to keep the facilities clean and then final food preparer has a responsibility to make sure that they cook foods properly washing the meat industry to do it right was Upton Sinclair's Mission nearly a century Hugo detach even by disguising himself as a working and infiltrating Chicago's packing houses it was a risky business by the circumstances of his own life called for desk dressers he had been there he had felt the cold he had not been able to buy food it has a leaky roof so he put that into the jungle that's for sure running the jungle was not Sinclair's ID he published an article in the Socialist newspaper appeal to reason about a workers strike in Chicago the newspaper asked him to go back and research a book about wage slavery in the meat industry in Disguise as a working man Sinclair encountered the real life characters he portraying in a jungle he was fat made it with the people who were there with how they look with the music he made it the material of the jungle smart choice now a year has passed in the lives of Sinclair's newlyweds Ona and jurgis have an infant son but shortly after his birth jaster's pylon you're just as father Antonis chickens from working in a cold went back to me he dies you're just barely has time to mourn before he slips what's the score in the killing home bar with a sprained ankle he loses his job now he was secondhand he realizes I damaged article they did not want him Azure this is strength coach showed his owners innocence she confesses to Marissa that she submitted to her boss a man called Connor becomes pregnant I can't hide the truth from Europeans mad with rage the labor a text on his boss is thrown in jail out of work Behind Bars Your Surrender to despair Chicago has defeated ton he can't imagine the worst is still to come one shot of Jim Sinclair's hero York plunges into new disasters his worst fear comes to the bank is taking the house Bunny finds owner in mauritia in a filthy boarding house owner's Shepherds that tortures labor the infant is stillborn the ordeal kills Moana soon after the last straw was young son falls through the sidewalk and drowns in the field beneath in despair the laborers simply abandoned Chicago in the shattered remnants of his family what Sinclair has really done is to sort of roll up a lot of different tragedies into the life of one family that's probably unrealistic for that amount of tragedy to occur within one for these types of situations to develop in a community like packing town in one or another family was actually quite common it created this traditional naturalistic deterministic story which human being just like the animals pulled up to shoot the packing plant and they are pulled up with the sense of optimism at the beginning this idea of going to America becoming successful leaving behind the problems of Europe and then they go down just like the animals and their process to with the publication of the Jungle in 1906 Upton Sinclair's own problems were suddenly miraculously is publisher advertised it as an expose about Health Plan elections not the plight of the poor as Sinclair intended public outcry caused by the jungle gold Congress to pass the 1906 Meat Inspection Act the first and clear it wasn't enough he declared a one-man war against meat and pepper American newspapers with stevia no. where's the Mandy reform the president himself Teddy Roosevelt tried to soothe the agitator mr. Sinclair keep your head he wrote the author who is publisher Sinclair go home and let me run the country for a while Mary had a little lamb and when she saw it sickens she shipped it off. cooking town and now it's labeled chicken New York Evening Post federal laws passed in the wake of the Jungle Bard Packers from adding fillers and impurities to meet they put USDA inspectors in every Meat Plant in America if they didn't like how many blue looks smells are feels they withheld the usda's blue seal of approval haunted by tragedy the hero of the Jungle has led Chicago from the torment of packing town he works and lives among rootless Mac do the country you're just regains his strength but his Spirit remains deeply wounded the end of the harvest season drives and clears here back to Chicago parking fines and losses a succession of jobs but no matter what he does he still under paint on protected from injury for actually a sleigh you're just pain is it theme Sinclair hope woodster Americas to the author a lifelong vegetarian the media issues didn't matter much what did matter was that men and women were suffering children were starving it was an American disgrace there can be no sew life or any man so long as men women and children are chained up tutorial and perish in misery what's more in Chicago jurgis discovers that norisha on his cousin is embarked on a King Noodle the people are starving prostitution was very common in a city like Chicago and a lot of the mole that turns it out as a way to get buy work for women like marysia that we're not able to make it to ask me joiners Sinclair tries to show the corruption of individuals in the novel good people people who started out early in the story Sean very positive characters and I think Marisha probably represents that about as well as any character in the novel towards the sort of your speaker towels and Tina suffering looks like your decision or will you with a rage and fury Goodwill your comrade beside you so say no in the voice of Labor the voice of them might be stirring giant will crush the system with one word ladies and gentlemen this is the voice of the oppressed pronouncing that do mother the order is a socialist organizer construction birthday is jurgis Falls in with a crowd of socialist they find him a new job and he cares about the future that were looking at in the jungle are addressed over. Of time but not solved by brilliant young socialist writers like Upton Sinclair the solutions emerged from packing Town itself through unionization through Community organizing and actually through supporting one another on a day-to-day catabasis he didn't know how socialism is going to work but in the last words of that novel he knew Chicago will be ours is socialism somehow we try but it didn't the laborers are packing town would struggle for decades doing Fair wages and decent lies for their families they Sinclair which stubbornly cling to socialist ideals I would never prevail Google make a note deer Sinclair on my return from Europe as always you are right shave in matters of politics sociology religion literature economics and the exact Sciences prominent thinkers such as making and celebrities like Charlie Chaplin now populated Sinclair's universe remain in the public for the rest of his life even run for governor of California we are going and to bring back prosperity and safety to our whole country before his death in 90 Sinclair would publish nearly 100 times but his later work would never eat with a book that made him famous what the jungle did is it raised enough awareness that a national inspection system resulted it was a microcosm a look at the 20th century as was unfolding at all the diff battle lines between the rich and the poor The Haves and the Have Nots and in that sense it's an enduring classic the jungle held up a mirror to the young century did rescued Sinclair from his painful you that helped America face its own Growing Pains keep watching discussion topics and activities and resources for great books the jungle are up next on a segment discovery

Uploaded by Shawn Mize.

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