Analytical Assignment on Progressivism

Background:Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, told of horrible conditions in the meatpacking industry as seen through the struggles of his main character Jurgis Rudkis, a Lithuanian immigrant, and his family. His desire was to highlight problems within American capitalism and particularly the struggles of the worker, and to promote social reform.Historians recognize his accounts as exaggerated as it would have been unlikely that any one family would have faced that much adversity.But his book was an instant best-seller and prompted President Teddy Roosevelt to launch an investigation into his claims.The investigative committee indeed discovered atrocious conditions in some plants but found others to be clean.The resultant Neill-Reynolds Report spurred the passage of the Meat Inspection Act (1906) which focused on protecting the public from tainted food but not from workplace abuses.

Read the assigned sections from the following primary source document:

From Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, read Chapter 9 and the first 3 paragraphs of Chapter 14 (last sentence of paragraph 3 ends with: “…they would charge two cents more a pound.”):https://www.gutenberg.org/files/140/140-h/140-h.ht…

Use the details from the assigned sections of this document to answer the following questions:

• According to Sinclair, in what ways did immigrants directly experience political corruption?
• According to Sinclair, what conditions did the workers experience in the plants?
• According to Sinclair, what was the state of the meat in these plants?

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A)Your Analytical Assignment should be at least 350 words in length.Please use complete sentences.In your answer to each question, you must include at least 2 specific examples from the documents in support of your argument.Each statement (argument) that you make must be directly supported with evidence from the source.Example:Columbus’s motives for conquest were:your argument.According to Columbus, these new lands offered Spain:“your source support” (Columbus).DO NOT use any other resources to answer these questions—only use the assigned documents.

• For citation purposes, put the author’s name and the chapter in parenthesis (Sinclair, Ch. 9 or Sinclair, Ch. 14).You must give credit to the author when you quote and also when you paraphrase.