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The Jungle

 


             The living conditions of Jurgis and his family relates to how people lived at this time. Having no money for homes forces many American's to live on the streets or in abandoned buildings. Jurgis and his family were fortunate to own a home, but they did not have working heat or water. They sat in the cold many nights, starving and near death. His family was not the only family on the street, unable to pay their rent forced many other families in Chicago out of their homes. Jurgis's house in fact is built over a sewer and their property owner exploits them with rents they cannot afford. He continually changes how much they owe on the family's home until they are unable to pay it at all; this was the case for many. American's lived in broken homes with no furniture at all; they only had body heat to keep them warm. If the family wanted to keep their home, the members of the family all had to get a job. Jobs in Packingtown are backbreaking, unsafe, and have no regard for individual workers. Jurgis's father, Dede Antanas, dies because of the working conditions and Jurgis injures himself several times. Many of the historical realities, although gruesome, caused positive outcomes to arise from them.
             One of the major positive outcomes was the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. This act came into effect a few years after the publishing of Sinclair's novel. The hair-raising descriptions of what was actually in the meat that American's were eating caused the government to take action. Repulsed by Sinclair's descriptions of the meat packing industry, Theodore Roosevelt ended the unsanitary conditions only after reading the book. The Food and Drug Act was a true example of how the people of our nation influenced the government to take action, to solve a growing problem affecting the American people. .
             The working conditions of many factories changed because of "The Jungle". If it were not for this book, it might have taken longer for these conditions to change which would result in losses of many American lives.


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