This is a book I have heard about since High School, but I had never read it before. I see why it was mentioned in High School; apparently the descriptions of the meat processing plants helped .lead to food safety regulations. I also see why the book itself was not required reading. It is a very dark and depressing story. It is also rather long, and ends up espousing Socialism, so not something a Social Studies class would want to encourage! It’s odd though, that of all the social ills described in the book, including child labor, predatory lending practices, and political corruption; the only thing legislated against was the meat processing. Granted, Sinclair does spend the greater part of the book on it, and it’s easier to focus on something that may affect you personally than something that probably just impacts the poor and powerless.
The story follows a family group who immigrates to the United States from Lithuania. One of them knew someone who “had gotten rich” in Chicago, so that is where they end up. The main character of the story, Jurgis Rudkus, is young and healthy, and so gets work right away in the stockyards. The others also get work, most in jobs allied to the stockyards. They try to buy a house, but a series of tragedies and disasters causes Jurgis to abandon the remainder of the group. He gets in trouble with the law; hitchhikes around the country for a while, taking odd jobs; and ends up back in Chicago. His fortunes continually see-saw, but by the end of the story, he has found a reasonably safe and secure job, and has discovered Socialism.
If you have any family members who worked in a large industrial concern in the early 1900’s, this could give you a glimpse of what their working and living conditions might have been like. The story is well written, but it is very bleak, and the tragedies that haunt this family, while individually credible, seem implausible when taken all together. It seemed to be a combination of the world being stacked against them, and the family not being able to catch a break. Of course, Sinclair’s larger purpose was to shine a light on all of the abuses being perpetrated by the meat industry.
If this was your family, how would you research them? The family immigrates from Lithuania, so the first place to look would be Ellis Island. Naturalization would be your next research target. Court records might also be fruitful for many of the people in this population; it was probably easy to get in trouble with the law. Of course, marriage and death records would be very important as well. Larger cities would be more likely to have directories, but might not include everyone. Usually we check the counties for information, but larger cities might also have more information at that level. Any group that was helping the poor might have records that could be useful.