Upton Sinclair, in 1904, was sent to investigate the meat packing industry in the city of Chicago. After seeing what he did, he decided to let the public know what capitalism did to the common worker. The Jungle raised a public outcry against the unhealthy standards in the meat packing industry and provoked the passage of The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. No novel since Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, first published in 1851, had made such a social impact. But in the end The Jungle was initially written to promote the rising Socialist Party and appeal to the common worker to join this party.

The Jungle was intended to reach out to the American people and show them the realities of capitalism. Sinclair knew many Americans were ignorant of this because he mentions the "settlement-worker", and how the rich moved to a certain spot to find out...