TR, Progressivism, Food, and Medicine

Contaminated Food -Upton Sinclair, a muckraker journalist, wrote a book called The Jungle. -Just as Jacob Riis exposed the terrible living conditions of immigrants, Upton Sinclair exposed the unsanitary conditions of food processing factories. -This caused citizens to become concerned about consuming mass produced food.

There would be meat stored in a great piles in rooms…thousands of rats would race about it….a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats…the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together. -Excerpts from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

In TR’s time, many were concerned about the unsanitary way that meat was processed.

The Jungle of Chicago -The Jungle was written with a focus on Chicago life and also displayed how bad working conditions were for those in the food processing factories. -Many Progressives felt that the only way to stop these terrible occurrences from putting the public health at risk was government intervention. -Teddy Roosevelt asserted that he would use government power to intervene, if Sinclair’s descriptions proved true.

Making Food Safe -TR appointed a commission of experts to investigate the meat packaging and Upton Sinclair’s claims of unsanitary conditions. -The commission backed Sinclair’s claims. Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act of The government began to force food companies to serve food in a sanitary way. The government also paid for the inspections.

The Pure Food and Drug Act -Companies made outrageous claims to sell products that did not work. Some children’s medicine had opium, alcohol, and other drugs. -In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed. The law called for label claims to be backed by truth. -Removing contaminations from medicine and food was also required.

Many makers of products in the early 20 th Century made outlandish claims that were not backed by evidence.