Never Won a Major Prize
The Jungle
by Upton Sinclair
Summary
Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus and his family arrive in Chicago hoping for a better life and instead find themselves ground down by the filth, injury, and corruption of the meatpacking plants that employ them. Sinclair meant the novel as a socialist call to arms on behalf of exploited workers, but readers fixated instead on its horrifying descriptions of contaminated meat. The public outcry it sparked led directly to new federal food safety laws within months of publication.
”
Historical Context & Significance
No literary prize recognized the book in 1906, since the Pulitzer Prize for fiction did not exist until 1918. Its influence was legislative rather than literary, prompting the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act that same year.