Sinclair embraced socialism wholeheartedly within months of being introduced to it, and, except for a brief interlude during World War I, he would remain a committed member of the Socialist Party of America for decades thereafter. 'The Jungle' initially appeared in a socialist newspaper. At one point, he also stumbled upon a laborer’s wedding party, which served as the inspiration for his opening chapter. For “The Jungle,” a 26-year-old Sinclair spent seven weeks in Chicago, touring stockyards and slaughterhouses and interviewing the laborers there, along with priests, bartenders, policemen, politicians and social workers. Yet he reported his books much like a journalist. Unlike most other muckrakers, such as Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens, Sinclair mainly wrote fiction. Sinclair is arguably the best known of the so-called muckrakers, the forerunners of today’s investigative journalists who in the early 1900s exposed widespread corporate and political malfeasance. Upton Sinclair (1878-1968), American novelist, circa 1915.
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