Portrayal of Historical Processes in The Jungle

Historical processes seeded by the aftermath of the American civil war and its subsequences leading up to the end of the 19th century has been reflected in Upton Sinclair’s 1905 fictional novel The Jungle. The novel captivates its audiences by vividly depicting the grim consequences of mass immigration, dense urbanization, and the political climate of its time. Through the eyes of Jurgis, the protagonist of Sinclair's novel, the audience is presented with the exploitation and struggles immigrants faced that were brought by the American industrialization which stem from the outcome of the American Civil War.

The exertions of the union government during and after the Civil War paved way for mass immigration. During the war, the union government passed two legislation acts that promoted mass migration internally in the United States. The Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Act made it possible to migrate civilization from east to west in the United States by giving away Federal Reserve lands and uniting the nation via a transcontinental railroad, respectively. The conclusions of the combined Acts are felt in the novel when Jurgis ventures into the west, after a series of tragic events, via railroad trains and encounters farmed settlements. After the Civil War, the 14th amendment was passed in 1866 by Congress that made it a constitutional right for immigrants to be granted citizenship by neutralization and extending citizenship to the offspring of immigrants that were born in the United States. The novel attributes the effects & exploitation schemes of the 14th amendment when Jurgis becomes a US citizen, free of cost, by signing neutralization papers but with the basis of being used in political paid-to-vote schemes such as graft. Despite the systematic paid-to-vote scheme; westward expansion alongside with the 14th amendment cascaded to influence mass immigration due to rapid advances in industrial production.

Progression in the industrial production induced capitalistic support for mass immigration. As civilization made its way to the west, so too did capitalism. A paragon transformation arose with the introduction of capitalism in the west that changed small local farms to large factories that were water powered by natural rivers. The large factories produced more goods at cheaper prices, which required an increase in labor supply due to new technologies in agricultural production. Further changes in the United States demographic came with the introduction of the electrical age, in the 1890s, that used electrical energy as a source for industrial production. An example of industrial production is the air-conditioned railroad trains that enabled the transportation of perishable goods, such as pork and cattle—depicted in the novel, which made it possible to survive long distance journey from the Pacific to the Atlantic coastlines. Electrical energy shift available work from the west back to major cities in the east. With the invention of the incandescent light bulb, factories were able to run everyday at all hours of the day. This in turn increased the demand for labor. The increasing demand for labor by capitalist was meet by a new wave of immigrants which presented capitalist with the opportunity to select those best suited for work—reflected in the novel when Jurgis is selected for his larger body size. As capitalist favored mass immigration so too did they favor their exploitation in cheap labor. The liberty of contracts, for example, created fierce competition amongst newly arrived immigrants to compete for long hours—labor demanding jobs in exchange for low wages. This exploitation is a recurring theme in The Jungle. For example, grandmother Majauszkiene’s tale of the new immigrants from eastern Europe taking over the work of the old immigrants from western Europe. Another example is when a socialist informs Jurgis about the wage competition. The novel characterizes economic mobility obtainable due to industrial progression in the late 19th century as the driving force for many immigrants to journey to the United States.

The Jungle sets economic mobility of industrialized cities of the United States as a premise for Jurgis and his extended family to journey to America. Many immigrants at the time set out for America to avoid economic and political tensions that plagued them in their respective country. Jurgis and his family arrive in New York and make their journey to Chicago to work in the meatpacking industry where they hope for a better economic stability. The premise to leave their country is further advocated by tales of rags-to-riches opportunities available in America inspired immigrants to leave their country; just as Jurgis and his extended family did after hearing tales of the success of their fellow countrymen Jokubas Szedviles in Packingtown. Furthermore, tales of high wages was perpetuated onto villages in Europe to influence the masses to set their hopes of economic mobility towards America. Unfortunately, the economic opportunity available in the United States were skewed to favor the established wealthy class as was the case with Jokubas Szedviles, an immigrant in The Jungle, who had many financial setbacks despite owning his business. For many immigrants, economic mobility was inaccessible due to language constrictions and high cost of living. This is exemplified when Jurgis and his extended family discover the hidden fees that are included in their mortgage due to their inability to read English. Supplementary to the cost of living in urban cities, mass immigration presented yet additional dilemmas—the adverse consequences of dense urbanization.

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The horrors of dense urbanization and its consequences is a recurring theme in Sinclair's novel The Jungle. Sinclair captures the reality of mass immigration of the time in dense urban cities by depicting exploitation schemes used by capitalistic Americans and malicious individuals that opposed the growing immigration influx. The first encounter of exploitation was when Jurgis and his extended family arrived in New York and meet an agent that puts them in odds with local officials. Another is when they are led into a hotel which charges them a large sum of money. Sinclair reveals the harsh reality of being a foreigner in a country by stating in the novel “The law says that the rate card shall be on the door of a hotel, but it does not say that it shall be in Lithuanian.” (Sinclair, The Jungle Nov. 4 1905) Urbanization, apart from exploitation of immigrants with language barriers, also hosted other cruelties such as unforgiving living conditions and social class tensions that often lead to an increase in crime activity.

The Jungle captures the harsh living conditions of the 19th century. When Jurgis and his extended family arrive to Packingtown, they are immediately settled into a boardinghouse that is overcrowded by other families and domestic animals. These conditions were, however, common in metropolitan cities throughout the northeastern parts of America at the time. Laws regarding the regulation of sanitation and public sewerage were not heavily administrated by local governments. This in turned allowed diseases to plague urban civilization. A lack of central heating also afflicted low-income families, such as Jurgis and his extended family when the cold, combined with poor working conditions, brought the death of Jurgis’s father. Still, poor conditions were not exclusive to the dwelling of immigrants; factories also faced poor conditions. Particularly the meatpacking industry for which the book uses through its tale as a background character that antagonizes Jurgis and his extended family. Poor working conditions affected, not just Jurgis’s father, but also all the other characters that put their lives and health in jeopardy. A case that exemplifies this, but is not solely intrinsic to Sinclair’s novel, is when accidents occurred that injured the workers or were fatal. Yet the ultimatum that Sinclair’s novel exposes is that poor conditions are intertwined with the home and the meatpacking industry when the youngest child in the extended family dies from eating contaminated meat. Sinclair includes this not just for literary tension but was included, with intention, to address these poor conditions and to speak of the lack of concern by capitalist and local government of its time to make any reformations. However it is the conclusion of poor conditions that entices many immigrants, just like Jurgis, into a life of crime.

City planners combat against crime syndicates in the late 19th century due to poor conditions and the troubles of both poor and wealthy urbanist. As mentioned earlier the meatpacking factory is an antagonist that brings the death of several of Jurgis’s family members, the rape of his wife, and the driving of the other female members into prostitution and drug addiction. The accumulated battering on Jurgis and his family leads Jurgis into a life of crime in order to survive. Crime syndicates grew in the 19th century in urban dense cities and in response the wealthy urbanist vacationed to the suburbs to escape victimization by the underprivileged. Victimization of the wealthy exists correspondingly in The Jungle when Jurgis goes on a battery and assault period. A progressive movement called “city beautiful” brought by wealthy reformist sought to fight poverty, poor sanitation, and crime by increasing the quality of life in the city. In their campaign, reformist strategically designed city blueprints that would present city dwellers with more open green space in order to ease the troubles of both the poor and wealthy. This movement caused reformist such as Frederick Law Olmsted to design the construction of Central Park in New York City. Although the novel doesn’t exhibit the response from reformist in confronting the victimization of the wealthy, it does exhibit a reply from the political machine’s decree over Packingtown.

Political subjugation in the 19th century was subordinated by the political machine and is the factual felon of The Jungle. The 1870-1900 is referred to as the “gilded age”, coined by Mark Twain used to describe the astonishing success of the American industrialization at its surface but beneath it lies an enormous imperfection that was the political machine. The Jungle embodies the term with its surface gilded with economic and social mobility but beneath it lies the dreadful reality of economic and social stagnation as well as political corruption. The architect behind this stagnation and corruption was the political machine. A political machine is a political organization whose sole purpose is to produce electoral votes that give political power to its selected candidate. In return for political power, the candidate must work in favor of its supporters, often by empowering them into other governmental jobs or by corruptibly favoring local laws in their favor. An example of the latter, in which corruption favors its supporters, is the political club called “War Whoop League” in which association with it provided immunity to arrest in the district of Packingtown. Another example of this corrupted support system is found in The Jungle when Sinclair introduces “The ruler of the district which was the Democratic boss, a little Irishman named Mike Scully. Scully held an important party office in the state, and bossed even the mayor of the city, it was said; it was his boast that he carried the stockyards in his pocket. He was an enormously rich man—he had a hand in all the big graft in the neighborhood.” (Sinclair, The Jungle Nov. 4 1905) Here we observe the subjugation of politics on a local level (often involving police and judicial corruption) and on a state level by political machine in which Scully’s position in the political party allows him to decree over Packingtown.

The historical processes by the end of the 19th century are innate in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. By representing the grim features of the late 19th century, Sinclair is able to engulf readers into the world that plagued the newly arrived immigrants. The historical analysis of this paper demonstrates the parallelism of the novel with historical processes that are characterized in the book: mass immigration, dense urbanization, and political subjugation in the late 19th century.