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Despite the tragic lack of federal labor legislation, The Jungle brought more attention to Bureau of Chemistry, which ensured accurate labeling and safer food products.
[Bureau of Chemistry Inspectors. 1909.]
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[Old Doc. Wiley’s Sure Cure for All Adulterations Fake Foods Quack
Remedies. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 1906.] |
The 1927 Agricultural Appropriations Act renamed the Bureau of Chemistry the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration, which was later shortened to the Food and Drug Administration.
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[The Food and Drug Administration. The American Chamber of Horrors. 29 Jun. 2018.]
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Soon the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 replaced the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and established more comprehensive regulations for food, drugs, medical devices, and cosmetics, also closing loopholes meatpackers previously exploited.
[Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. 1938.]
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President Lyndon Johnson signed the 1967 Wholesome Meat Act into law, which mandates intrastate, interstate, and international meat product inspection. These laws triumphantly shape much of today’s consumer market.
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[The Wholesome Meat Act. 1967.]
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[President Lyndon B. Johnson and his dog, Yuki, greet Upton Sinclair. 15 Dec. 1967.]
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[Herbert Block. That guy Nader makes me sick. 1967.]
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“Perhaps you will be surprised to be told that I failed in my purpose, when you know of all the uproar that all that ‘The Jungle’ has been creating. But then that uproar is all accidental, and was due to an entirely different cause. I wished to frighten the country by a picture of what its industrial masters were doing to their victims; entirely by chance had I stumbled on another discovery—what they were doing to the meat supply of the civilized world. In other words, I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”
[Upton Sinclair. What Life Means to Me. 1906.]
