Upton Sinclair, the famous American author, wanted to be a great influence on society. He was born in 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland, from a family of Southern aristocracy. His father was an alcoholic and his mother came from a wealthy family. When Sinclair was ten, the family moved to New York. His father sold hats and spent his evenings in bars coming home drunk every night. As a child, Sinclair was an excellent reader and scholar. By the age of fourteen, he began writing in his spare time. He attended Columbia University and later he moved to Quebec, Canada. There he lived in extreme poverty; not knowing from where his next meal would come. Through poverty, Sinclair came to see the advantages of being a socialist. By the age of twenty he became a dedicated socialist. After all of his struggles through childhood and young adulthood, his writing ended...