The Jungle: Exposures of Meat-Packing Lies

Junior Individual Website

Scott Moua

When The Jungle was published, it not only exposed the unsanitary meat processing

practices, but also led the government to take responsibility to ensure that everything we

consume is safe by creating the Pure Food and Drug Act; this improved the food production

environment and recognized the rights of employees to have safe working conditions which

ensures us that everything we consume is safe. After watching the documentary, Food Inc., I

realized that our nation’s food industry often put profit ahead of our health along with the

safety of many workers. This me think that in America today we are still struggling to enforce

the responsibility of making sure that food on our plates is safe for consumption. When NHD

came around, I knew that The Jungle would be the perfect topic for me.

Once I selected The Jungle as my project, I went to the school, local, and University of

Wisconsin-La Crosse libraries. I gathered books, newspapers, videos, and magazines. On the

Internet, I found additional primary and secondary sources that led to further research. The

most helpful resource was the federal report, written by President Theodore Roosevelt. It gave

me a personal view of the conditions in the Chicago stockyards and its impact that pressured

the Congress in urgent needs of immediate actions of providing a thorough examination to all

U.S. meat-packing industry.

During my research, I couldn’t help focusing on the intriguing effects of The Jungle. This

was something that my audience needed to see. For this reason, I chose to present my NHD

project in the form of a website. I selected a series of video clips and photographs that would

point out the traumatizing, “behind the scenes” of The Jungle. The highlight of these materials

served as visuals, primary source documents, and quotes.

The Jungle was published at the turn of the Twentieth century when the United States

was approaching the era of progressivism. The repugnant images and reporter-like descriptions

in The Jungle made it the ideal tipping point for the creation of new regulations by provoking

public outrage that reached Washington. Eventually, our nation needed to weigh the rights of

corporate powers that manipulate its consumers against the rights of promoting public health.

As the incredible public outcry over The Jungle quickly became effective, President Theodore

Roosevelt made the decision of passing the Pure Food and Drug Act, later established as the

Food and Drug Administration. The decision-making to create the FDA also caused Americans to

re-evaluate our responsibilities for protecting and promoting public health through guidelines

and supervisions of food safety and medication usage. By creating the FDA, our nation created

new policies to prevent misbranded meat and meat products from being sold as food and

ensure that they are slaughtered under sanitary conditions. The responsibilities taken on the

FDA continue to certify that the U.S. meat industry will remain to process and slaughtered

animals under the certification system for American meat and will guarantee the safe

manufacturing of food and medicines nationwide.