Upton Sinclair

Upton Sinclair (September 20, 1878 - November 25, 1968) wrote in many genres, often advocating Socialist views, and achieved considerable popularity in the early twentieth century. He gained particular fame for his novel, The Jungle (1905), which dealt with conditions in U.S. meat packing industry and caused a public uproar which ultimately led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act in 1906.

Upton Sinclair had an unusual upbringing. His father was an alcoholic and his immediate family was poor, but he often stayed with his wealthy grandparents in New York, allowing him to experience two extremes of American society.

To pay his way through New York City College he wrote jokes and fiction for magazines and newspapers. His was successful enough to progress to the Columbia graduate school.

After writing The Jungle, Sinclair invested nearly $30,000 of the proceeds into the Helicon Home Colony, a utopian society being set up in New Jersey. Unfortunately, it burned down four months later.

He ran for Governor of California twice (first as Socialist candidate, the second time as a Democrat), but lost both times, although he gained votes in the second election (during the Great Depression) with a plan known as EPIC (End Poverty in California).

Books by Upton Sinclair

• Springtime and Harvest, (1901); first novel
• The Jungle, (1906)
• The Cry for Justice, (1915); anthology compiled by Sinclair
• King Coal, (1917)
• The Profits of Religion, (1918)
• The Brass Check, (1920); muckraking view of the world of journalism
• The Goosestep, (1923); muckraking treatment of institutions of higher learning
• Oil, (1927); banned in Boston
• Boston, (1928)
• The Lanny Budd series
• ...

External links

• an article by Sinclair on EPIC at the Museum of the City of San Francisco
• Project Gutenberg e-texts of some of Upton Sinclair's works