Slaughterhouses and the packing companies Essay - 2794 Words

â€Å"I wished to frighten the country by a picture of what its industrial masters were doing to their victims; entirely by chance 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 hit it in the stomach† (Bloom). With the publication of a single book, Upton Sinclair found himself as a worldwide phenomenon overnight. He received worldwide response to his novel and invitations to lectures all over the world including one to the White House by President Roosevelt. In late 1904, the editor of the Appeal to Reason, a socialist magazine sent Sinclair to Chicago to tell the story of the poor common workingmen and women unfairly enslaved by the†¦show more content†¦Sinclair, himself, knew how it felt to be poor stating, â€Å"externally, the story [The Jungle] had to do with a family of stockyard workers, but internally it was the story of my own family† (Folsom 24). His early literary career started with little success, earning not nearly enough to support himself-let alone his family. To know how the poor suffered in the wintertime, Sinclair only had to recall the previous winter in the cabin, when his family only had cotton blankets and a couple rugs on top to stay warm. In Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, he illustrates the theme of socialism in order to show the Chicago meatpacking industry’s inhumane treatment of the common man during the 1920s. Sinclair intended The Jungle to open the public’s eyes to the industries’ wage enslavement of its workers; promoting socialism to be the answer to Capitalistic monopolies. First and foremost, Sinclair promotes the cause of socialism by describing the gruesome conditions that are provided for the workers at the slaughterhouses. The packing companies can care less about the welfare of workers because hundreds of people stand outside their gates waiting for any op portunity to try to do the job just as well or better than the man before them. For example, all companies require the common workers though long hours of work from before sunrise to after sunset; working mesmerized on the task under the radiance of artificial lighting. â€Å"Hour after hour, day afterShow MoreRelatedImmigrant Worker Ethics Essay1713 Words   |  7 Pagesas they apply to the meat packing industry and immigrant workers. I will discuss the recommendations of the HRW. I will provide my opinion and consider some of the utilitarian and deontological considerations, and conclude this report with a brief summary of the entire analysis, highlighting some of the most significant parts that the report contains HISTORY â€Å"In 1906, Upton Sinclairs novel The Jungle uncovered harrowing conditions inside Americas meat packing plants and initiated a periodRead MoreShould Pork Processed Pork Be Banned?713 Words   |  3 PagesPork is processed by transporting the hogs to a slaughterhouse or pork packing plants, individuals are still able to process their own pork if they would like but is not very common. In 2013 there were 606 of these USDA inspected slaughter houses for pork, with 12 of these plants making up over half of the hogs slaughtered in a calendar year (Giamalva 2014, 22). The top 5 packing facilities of 2015 based on their estimated daily slaughter capacity (determined by head per day) are: Smithfield (115Read MoreFast Food Nation Synthesis823 Words   |  4 Pagesup by men and women, these people unknowing of what exactly they have gotten themselves into. The meatpacking, today, has become one of the most dangerous jobs in America. As found by Steven Greenhouse of the New York times, â€Å"†¦the nation’s meat packing industry has such bad working conditions that it violates basic human and worker rights.† Ever since the publication of the famous book by Upton Sainclair--The Jungle— people all over the world have found it necessary for inspections to be consideredRead MoreGeography Of Food : Midterm Exam1630 Words   |  7 Pagescommodity chain becomes controlled by a finite number of producers. In the beef industry consolidation would be at the slaughterhouse and meat packing level. One company would consolidate the steps of production into one facility. Also companies would consolidate the market by only having a small amount of corporations controlling the slaughterhouses and meat packing. Currently, four companies control 87% of the meat production. The definition of a commodity chain can be broken down into two definitionsRead MoreSection 1: Typically, we need a well-balanced meal to give us the energy to do day-to-day tasks and700 Words   |  3 Pageshis book, Schlosser inspects the social and economic penalties of the processes of one specific section of the American food system: the fast food industry. Schlosser details the stages of the fast food production process, like the farms, the slaughterhouse and processing plant, and the fast food franchise itself. Schlosser uses his skill as a journalist to bring together appropriate historical developments and trends, illustrative statistics, and telling stories about the lives of industry participantsRead MoreMeat, China, And Communication Revolutions1373 Words   |  6 Pagescirculation of goods, people, and messages† (Mattelart xiv). This definition is critical to the thesis of this paper, because it alludes to industry being an essential component of communication. T his paper will explore two specific industries: the meat packing industry of the late 19th century and the exportation of consumer goods from contemporary China. I will argue that these are both examples of communication revolutions due to their innate ability to cause mass migrations across countries, in additionRead MoreEric Schlossers Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal1377 Words   |  6 Pages In the book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser talks about the working conditions of fast food meat slaughterhouses. In the chapter â€Å"The Most Dangerous Job,† one of the workers, who despised his job, gave Schlosser an opportunity to walk through a slaughterhouse. As the author was progressed backwards through the slaughterhouse, he noticed how all the workers were sitting very close to each other with steel protective vests and knives. The workers were mainly young Latina women, who worked swiftlyRead MoreThe Slaughterhouse By Upton Sinclair And Fast Food Nation By Eric Schlosser1015 Words   |  5 Pagesinside the factory. Schlosser mainly addresses how unfit the conditions are for the workers, while Sinclair informs the reader of how the animals have been neglected in such poor conditions before death. Despite their differing opinions on the slaughterhouse industry; both authors reveal the industry’s extreme lack of sanitary regulations, how dangerous worki ng conditions have been for their employees, and how the livestock packaging process is similar to a conveyor belt. Although Sinclair and SchlosserRead MoreHealth Risks Of The Meat Industry1358 Words   |  6 Pagesprovides its own unique challenges and risks. The meat in the grocery stores is plentiful, but it is very different today than it was prior to this rise in production. While the production numbers provide a very clear idea of how much meat American companies are harvesting and selling, the safety of the system is not so clear-cut. Many experts have weighed in their opinions; some critics call for a complete eradication of the industrial process, while some supporters praise the safety standards thisRead MoreAmerica Is Hungry, And Someone Has Got For Keep Us Fed1363 Words   |  6 Pagesconsumption. Especially so in slaughterhouses and processing plants, as there are many potential contamination hazards, and most depend on human attention to catch and correct. The cattl e may arrive at the slaughterhouse with feces on their hides, which present the first risk of contamination as it can be very difficult to remove the hides from the animal without transferring any of the pathogen bearing feces to the carcass. The second high-risk area in the slaughterhouse is the gutting station, where