The Jungle is a novel by American muckraker author Upton Sinclair, known for his efforts to expose corruption in government and business in the early 20th century.
In 1904 Sinclair spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards for the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, which published the novel in serial form in 1905. The novel was later published in book format by Doubleday in 1906.
First edition
Panorama of the beef industry in 1900 by a Chicago-based photographer
Men walking on wooden rails between cattle pens in the Chicago stockyard (1909)
Chicago meat inspectors in early 1906
The muckrakers were reform-minded journalists, writers, and photographers in the Progressive Era in the United States (1890s–1920s) who claimed to expose corruption and wrongdoing in established institutions, often through sensationalist publications. The modern term generally references investigative journalism or watchdog journalism; investigative journalists in the US are occasionally called "muckrakers" informally.
McClure's (cover, January 1901) published many early muckraker articles.
Julius Chambers
Nellie Bly
Theodore Roosevelt