Right from the get-go, Sinclair believed that The Jungle was destined to change history-and said as much when he met journalist Ernest Poole as he was starting his field research. Upton Sinclair did seven weeks’ worth of research on location. Sinclair accepted the challenge, made tracks for the Chicago stockyards, and got to work. In 1904, Warren gave Sinclair a $500 advance (the equivalent of about $14,000 in today’s dollars) to pen a similar novel about the problem of “wage slavery” in industrialized cities. Warren, admired Sinclair’s fourth novel, Manassas, a historical epic set in the Civil War that was written as a salute to the abolitionist movement.
One year later, Sinclair established himself as a regular contributor to Appeal to Reason, America’s leading socialist newspaper. His politics veered leftward with age, and by 1903, he had become a socialist. Sinclair’s first novel-a romance titled Springtime and Harvest-was released in 1901. While enrolled at the City College of New York, the future Pulitzer Prize-winner supported himself by writing jokes and short stories for assorted newspapers. Upton Sinclair, who was born in 1878, began his literary career as a teenager. The Jungle was commissioned by a socialist newspaper editor. Grab a barf bag and join us as we take a fresh look at Sinclair’s gut-wrenching magnum opus. The book certainly did both of those things-but for reasons that its author didn’t quite expect. Upton Sinclair conceived The Jungle as a political game-changer, a book that would get people talking and instigate major reforms.
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