an public as Sinclair had hoped. The American public, however, was not so much concerned about the plight of the immigrant workers and their families as they were concerned about the unsanitary conditions that existed in the meatpacking houses.
The workplace conditions in which animals were slaughtered and processed (as described by Sinclair) were so gross and unsanitary that it was obvious that anyone working in such an environment was at risk for health problems, and it was equally obvious that people consuming most of the products from such operations were equally at risk. Further, the operators of the packinghouses, whose primary focus was on maximizing profits, were loath to discard any meat, regardless of its condition.
Thus, diseased and rotten meat found its way from the packinghouses to the countryÆs butcher shops. Sinclair (1905; 2003) also reported that hamburger meat produced at the packing houses, at times, contained rats that had died on the premises from poisoning, as well as parts of the workers in the packinghouses who lost fingers or other parts of their bodies in workplace accidents.
Soon after the publishing of The Jungle, public outcry demanded changes to assure that the meatpackers would stop selling rotten meat, diseased meat, or meat adulterated by poisoned rats and human body parts. President Theodore Roosevelt took an interest in the issue, and the Congress was pressured into enacting the Pure Food and Act, which became law in 1906. The law, however, was intended to protect the health of consumers, not the safety of the workers in the packinghouses.
Nevertheless, an incidental effect of the Pure Food and Drug Act was an improvement of the working conditions within the meatpacking houses. This incidental effect occurred because it was necessary to clean-up the workplace in order to assure that the products coming out of the packinghouses were not a threat to public health.
The Current S...