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Article: Meat Inspection Laws
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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MEAT INSPECTION LAWS
MEAT INSPECTION LAWS.
In 1906, Upton Sinclair published
The Jungle,
a novel about unsanitary conditions in Chicago meat-packing plants and the social inequalities suffered by the laboring classes working there. While the social commentary was largely ignored, the public was outraged at the grisly descriptions of meat production, including how the packers treated diseased beef with kerosene to hide its foul smell before placing it on the market. Sinclair claimed that such "embalmed beef" had killed more American solders in the Spanish-American War than had died in battle.
The health horrors described in
The Jungle
cut the sale of meat products almost in half. The ...