http://www.mappingthoreaucountry.org/itineraries/walden-pond/

EPA

UPTON SINCLAIR’S THE JUNGLE AND

THE FOUNDING OF THE FDA

COURSE MODULE FOR INTRODUCTORY COURSES IN AMERICAN POLITICS,

PUBLIC POLICY, AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

RACHEL CARSON’S SILENT SPRING AND THE FOUNDING OF

THE EPA

After Sinclair’s vivid portrayal of the disgusting conditions in the meatpacking industry helped to inspire the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), Republican Senator Albert Beveridge, who authored the bill, described it as “the most pronounced extension of federal power in every direction ever enacted.”

“Silent Spring played in the history of environmentalism roughly the same role that Uncle Tom's Cabin played in the abolitionist movement. In fact, EPA today may be said without exaggeration to be the extended shadow of Rachel Carson,” Jack Lewis, “The Birth of the EPA,” EPA Journal (1985).