The Jungle

About the book

Jurgis Rudkus and his family arrive in Chicago expecting hard work to provide a route towards stability. Employment in and around the meatpacking industry reveals conditions in which wages, housing, illness, injury, and political influence are closely connected. Sinclair follows the cumulative pressure of arrangements that can turn a small setback into a larger catastrophe. Domestic hopes give the account a personal centre, while the narrative increasingly argues for a political explanation of what the family experiences. The book's famous attention to food production belongs to a broader concern with the treatment of workers as expendable resources. Readers encounter both an urgent social novel and an explicit argument, whose power depends on tracing the distance between a promise of opportunity and the institutions controlling access to it.

• Labour
• Immigration
• Economic exploitation

Why read it

For the way a family's daily difficulties reveal connections among working conditions, housing, and political power.

English text