The_Progressive_Movement_And_The_Jungle

The Progressive Movement And The Jungle The progressive reform movement was a response to modern industrialization and the social bi-products caused by that industrialization. Despite their myriad of causes, all reformers wanted the same thing: to remedy the ‘social evils’ spawned by capitalism, not the system itself. What were these ‘social evils’' The text mentions these: lack of education, child labor, sanitation issues, political corruption, and inadequate labor laws. It is the need for these same issues that is highlighted in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. The Jungle was originally published serially in the Appeal to Reason in 1905. Sinclair was commissioned by the Socialist Weekly in 1904. Sinclair’s main intention had been to emphasize the plight of the laborers who were suppressed by capitalism. By presenting capitalism as a ‘social evil’, Sinclair tried to convince against it and show Socialism as an alternative. However, the public missed Sinclair’s main point and focused instead on the unsanitary manufacturing practices in the meat industry. The issue of consumer protection was the most highlighted progressive movement in The Jungle. Sinclair stayed seven weeks in a stockyard to gather the material for this part of the book. After this research he was able to inform his readers of the conditions through jungle, because, social, children, progressives, progressive, political, meat, issues, goal, sinclair’s, sinclair, school, rats, paid, movement, money, million, laws, laborers, labor, jurgis, fought, evils’, education, corruption, conditions, capitalism, better, wished, wanted, wages, vote, seven, sanitation