Within weeks of The Jungle’s publication, it garnered local and international attention, leading Germany, France, and Great Britain to stop importing American meat products to keep infected meats out of their countries.
“France and Germany barred American meats from their ports at the time of the packing-house exposures. ... other European countries have followed their denying example.”[American Meats Abroad. New York Times. 11 Aug. 1907.] |
Meatpackers“These dispensers of 'literature' ... [do] real harm ... practically to the entire public. ... It is an injustice to every man, woman, or child who eats meat, utterly without justification, it plants in their minds a suspicion of the wholesomeness of their daily food.”[J. Odgen Armour. The Packers: The Private Car Lines, and the People. 1906.] |
Investigators“Let me say at once that people have no right to hold their noses and shut their eyes. ... If only one-tenth part be true, there would still ... be some debt ... to Mr. Upton Sinclair. And there is, unhappily, good reason to believe ... that a very considerable body of undeniable and easily ascertainable truth sustains the charges that are made.”[Winston Churchill. The Chicago Scandals. 1906.] |
[South African postcard series The Lodger and Chicago Tinned Meat.] |
“It is possible that this remarkable book may come to be considered a factor in far-reaching events. The indignation of millions of Americans
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