Join Us in January for a Timely Discussion

[chadadanielleKR]

---

BenKitchen wrote:
Here is the letter from my aunt. Her father worked in a steel factory close to the time period this book was written about.

Hi, Ben,

It's great to hear from you, and I'm so glad you've discovered the world of literature. It can add a new dimension to your life.

Yes, my father was a steelworker at Armco, but I'm afraid I can't tell you much else. He died when I was 13, and he had been sick for some time before that. I only remember that he often worked nights. There were 3 shifts. One was 4 (p.m.) to 12 midnight, and one was 12 midnight to 8 a.m.

I don't think Armco in those days was like the place that Sinclair wrote about. Of course the work was hard. But it was considered a relatively good place to work, with relatively good pay. I never heard any complaints about oppression or whatever and don't remember anything about safety issues. I take that back. My brother, Albie (Albert like our father), worked there as a "rigger." I don't know what that is, but it required him to work at heights and he fell once and hurt his back. He was ok, but I think he had chronic back problems after that. Ethel would remember these things better than I.

What I do remember may surprise you. I thought the steel mill was beautiful. At certain times of the day there was color in the sky like a sunset, but it was coming from the mill. And the structure of the mill fascinated me, with the interplay of the horizontal and vertical. A few years ago I discovered that a major photographer, Edward Weston, took pictures of Armco in the early 1920s, when he went to Middletown to visit his sister, who happened to live there. He appreciated its beauty, too. If I can figure out a way to send you some of those images, I'll do so.

Happy reading,

Aunt Jeanne

---

Hi Ben,
Thank you so much for sharing with us you very personal comments and this very interesting and lively letter. Good luck with your reading. As for me, I reached chap. 26 and I am still glued to the book.

[Choisya]

Message Edited by Choisya on 01-22-200706:53 PM

[Choisya]

I was searching for a DVD or VHS of the Jungle and the only one I came across was this which lists Upton Sinclair as playing himself!:-

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0004182/

Has anyone seen it? Or any other version?

[BenKitchen]

I have seen every black and white movie ever made just about even thought I am 26. I was a really big black and white movie fan. I have seen the jungle, but it was a long time ago. To be honest I don't remember if it was good or not. this was probly 5 years ago. I wouldn't think the movie to be to good thought or I would remember. See if you can find a clip of it on the web try youtube or something.

[BenKitchen]

SPOIlERS IN THE VIDEO LINK ONLY!!!!!!

I found a very odd video. Its some college girls doing a rap about The jungle by upton sinclair


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8667535081728310133&q=the+jungle+movie+upton+sinclair&hl=en

Message Edited by BenKitchen on 01-08-200703:00 PM

[BenKitchen]

Message Edited by BenKitchen on 01-08-200703:01 PM

[BenKitchen]

actualy there are alot of spoilers in that video. I am really sorry.

[Choisya]

It's great Ben - thanks a lot! I like rap when I can understand the words!!

---

BenKitchen wrote:
I found a very odd video. Its some college girls doing a rap about The jungle by upton sinclair


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8667535081728310133&q=the+jungle+movie+upton+sinclair&hl=en

---

[BenKitchen]

I Thought it was really cute, because you could tell they tried really hard on it.

[Choisya]

Message Edited by Choisya on 01-22-200706:50 PM

[Choisya]

It ought to be shown in all the American schools

---

BenKitchen wrote:
SPOIlERS IN THE VIDEO LINK ONLY!!!!!!

I found a very odd video. Its some college girls doing a rap about The jungle by upton sinclair


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8667535081728310133&q=the+jungle+movie+upton+sinclair&hl=en

Message Edited by BenKitchen on 01-08-200703:00 PM

---

Message Edited by Choisya on 01-08-200704:04 PM

[fanuzzir]

Choisya, thank you so much for the thought. Of course, you needn't follow through, but I know better than to try to talk you out of such an idea. . . .

[fanuzzir]

I wanted to thank you both for such an illuminating take on the immigration issue as it relates not only to the U. S. then and now but to the U. S. and Europe spectrum of economic/legal systems. It's a fascinating approach you both take that draws me into the question of globalization and its power to destabilize societies with its influx and outgoes of labor and capital. It also makes me think again about the immigration of the early twentieth century not as a heyday of the "melting pot." but as an early version of the social problems you discuss in your posts.



chadadanielleKR wrote:



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Choisya wrote:
On the general subject of immigration, which has been raised on this thread, perhaps Americans do not know that recent legislation in the European Union gives rights to every European citizen to travel freely within Europe to seek work and accommodation (without passport or visa restrictions). There are approx 470 million Europeans with those rights, which are in addition to the immigration quotas Europe has accepted as part of its burden in settling immigrants from other parts of the world and to seekers of asylum from political oppression. I do not have access to recent figures but I suspect that the rate of immigration to Europe now exceeds that rate of immigration to the USA.

With regard to the 'Jungle', I fear that some immigrants are bringing aspects of their Jungles to their host countries, as well as much needed skills. The rate of sex and drug related crime has, for instance, increased in the UK with the recent influx of Eastern European immigration, and health & safety measures in some industries are being flouted by bosses and workers who have not previously worked to the same standards. Whereas earlier immigrants from the old Commonwealth understood English, and English has been taught in all Western European schools since WWII, most Eastern Europeans are not English speakers and sometimes have difficulty in understanding what is required of them. Upton Sinclair would have found much to write about in the

new European Jungle

Here is a map of the new European Union, which will soon include Turkey:-

http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/europe/european-union/map.htm
Message Edited by Choisya on 12-30-200608:07 AM



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The jungle makes me wonder about the plight of the immigrants in countries like China and India where there is an organized society, a growing mass market and a growing taskforce of unskilled, poor and migrant people. What strikes me in the jungle is the scale of the "whole business": tons of food processed every day, thousands of unskilled workers and huge production facilities. Such scale was rather new for the time although the industrialization was well under way in Europe already. But in fast-developping countries of today...

[Choisya]

It's on the way! Happy reading!

---

fanuzzir wrote:
Choisya, thank you so much for the thought. Of course, you needn't follow through, but I know better than to try to talk you out of such an idea. . . .

---

[JesseBC]

I doubt it. For one thing, American reading tastes lean towards the tawdry and banal. But, more importantly, as much as I hate to admit it, Americans just don't do satire well. Europeans think it's because we're not well-read enough to get the joke, but they're wrong. It's cultural. We take ourselves too seriously for it. Artifice and slapstick, yes; satire and irony, no.

---

Choisya wrote:

---

PaulK wrote:Well done BenKitchen.
I think you are having the reaction that Sinclair wants you to have. This book was obviously written to upset people and make them angry enough to push for change. I am only up to chapter 9 and I don't expect a very happy ending from what I have read so far. Like you I am finding the book difficult to read because I feel for the characters but I want to know just how hard Sinclair played on people's emotions to get the effect he wanted.

---

I have been wondering whether The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (by Robert Tressell) is read in the US? This is a story of the exploitation of building trade workers in the 1900s with a similar message to Sinclair's. It is a book which has inspired generations of the British working class and is written in a lighter, more satirical, vein than The Jungle.

http://www.unionhistory.info/ragged/ragged.php

---

[JesseBC]

The Jungle today would be an entirely different book. Probably written by miners in West Virginia, Mexicans targeted in immigration sweeps, or union workers either being bought out or forced to choose between their own benefits or their retired parents' benefits.

Admittedly, I'm still in the early chapters of the book, but it doesn't seem to me Sinclair was trying to establish food safety standards so much as he was trying to instigate a labor revolution.

I don't know of any modern writers who might be compared to Sinclair. Barbara Ehrenreich comes to mind, though it's hardly a fair comparison to either one of them. Peter Hessler is good for reading about labor issues in China, though, again, it's a completely different situation than the American Industrial Revolution. The latter was driven by mechanization. The situation in China is driven by the globalization of cheap labor.

---

Choisya wrote:
Good point Danielle - I wonder what the food industries of 'Chindia' are like and whether they have their own Sinclairs writing about them?

---

chadadanielleKR wrote:

---

Choisya wrote:
On the general subject of immigration, which has been raised on this thread, perhaps Americans do not know that recent legislation in the European Union gives rights to every European citizen to travel freely within Europe to seek work and accommodation (without passport or visa restrictions). There are approx 470 million Europeans with those rights, which are in addition to the immigration quotas Europe has accepted as part of its burden in settling immigrants from other parts of the world and to seekers of asylum from political oppression. I do not have access to recent figures but I suspect that the rate of immigration to Europe now exceeds that rate of immigration to the USA.

With regard to the 'Jungle', I fear that some immigrants are bringing aspects of their Jungles to their host countries, as well as much needed skills. The rate of sex and drug related crime has, for instance, increased in the UK with the recent influx of Eastern European immigration, and health & safety measures in some industries are being flouted by bosses and workers who have not previously worked to the same standards. Whereas earlier immigrants from the old Commonwealth understood English, and English has been taught in all Western European schools since WWII, most Eastern Europeans are not English speakers and sometimes have difficulty in understanding what is required of them. Upton Sinclair would have found much to write about in the new European Jungle

Here is a map of the new European Union, which will soon include Turkey:-

http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/europe/european-union/map.htm

Message Edited by Choisya on 12-30-200608:07 AM

---

The jungle makes me wonder about the plight of the immigrants in countries like China and India where there is an organized society, a growing mass market and a growing taskforce of unskilled, poor and migrant people. What strikes me in the jungle is the scale of the "whole business": tons of food processed every day, thousands of unskilled workers and huge production facilities. Such scale was rather new for the time although the industrialization was well under way in Europe already. But in fast-developping countries of today...

---

---

[JesseBC]

The intersection between globalization and immigration where I see the most injustice is that companies are permitted to search the globe for the cheapest possible labor, whereas laborers are NOT permitted to search the globe for the best possible jobs. Immigration laws require labor to stay put and tolerate whatever they're given.

---

fanuzzir wrote:
I wanted to thank you both for such an illuminating take on the immigration issue as it relates not only to the U. S. then and now but to the U. S. and Europe spectrum of economic/legal systems. It's a fascinating approach you both take that draws me into the question of globalization and its power to destabilize societies with its influx and outgoes of labor and capital. It also makes me think again about the immigration of the early twentieth century not as a heyday of the "melting pot." but as an early version of the social problems you discuss in your posts.



chadadanielleKR wrote:



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Choisya wrote:
On the general subject of immigration, which has been raised on this thread, perhaps Americans do not know that recent legislation in the European Union gives rights to every European citizen to travel freely within Europe to seek work and accommodation (without passport or visa restrictions). There are approx 470 million Europeans with those rights, which are in addition to the immigration quotas Europe has accepted as part of its burden in settling immigrants from other parts of the world and to seekers of asylum from political oppression. I do not have access to recent figures but I suspect that the rate of immigration to Europe now exceeds that rate of immigration to the USA.

With regard to the 'Jungle', I fear that some immigrants are bringing aspects of their Jungles to their host countries, as well as much needed skills. The rate of sex and drug related crime has, for instance, increased in the UK with the recent influx of Eastern European immigration, and health & safety measures in some industries are being flouted by bosses and workers who have not previously worked to the same standards. Whereas earlier immigrants from the old Commonwealth understood English, and English has been taught in all Western European schools since WWII, most Eastern Europeans are not English speakers and sometimes have difficulty in understanding what is required of them. Upton Sinclair would have found much to write about in the

new European Jungle

Here is a map of the new European Union, which will soon include Turkey:-

http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/europe/european-union/map.htm
Message Edited by Choisya on 12-30-200608:07 AM



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The jungle makes me wonder about the plight of the immigrants in countries like China and India where there is an organized society, a growing mass market and a growing taskforce of unskilled, poor and migrant people. What strikes me in the jungle is the scale of the "whole business": tons of food processed every day, thousands of unskilled workers and huge production facilities. Such scale was rather new for the time although the industrialization was well under way in Europe already. But in fast-developping countries of today...

---

[vivico1]

---

JesseBC wrote:
The intersection between globalization and immigration where I see the most injustice is that companies are permitted to search the globe for the cheapest possible labor, whereas laborers are NOT permitted to search the globe for the best possible jobs. Immigration laws require labor to stay put and tolerate whatever they're given.

---

I agree with you Jesse,
Look what America is doing right now. We are "farming out", nice term huh, jobs to countries like India where they can basically do to the workers there, what we did to the immigrants.

We have a huge problem with illegal immigration here, we have laws for legal immigrating, and so everyone worries about getting and/or keeping their jobs here. Now, if we could swing open those doors like we did in the time period we are reading about, I think we would still be doing the exact same thing we did then. Since we can't, we will just do it to workers overseas, rather than pay our workers a decent wage and a safe job here. But then, if we complain, we are told like children, well but it will cost you so much more for these goods if we do that here!

There is a give and take that has to happen on both sides really. I dont see it happening, when the human "beast of burden" population is so big world wide. We haven't really changed, we just set up shop at a new address.

[Choisya]

I am not sure that this is altogether true Jesse because labourers can move and do now search the internet, newspapers etc. However, the employers can afford to search the world but ordinary folks can only expend so much time and money. Yet another example of where the power lies We have an example of immigration/emigration here in that quite a large number of our Asian immigrants, from the old Commonwealth, eventually move on to Canada. Britain is but the first leg of their migration. We also have an increasing number of Indians moving back to India because of that country's improved economy - especially in the IT sector. Travel was much more expensive in Jurgis and Ona's day so such options were not open to American immigrants then.

---

JesseBC wrote:
The intersection between globalization and immigration where I see the most injustice is that companies are permitted to search the globe for the cheapest possible labor, whereas laborers are NOT permitted to search the globe for the best possible jobs. Immigration laws require labor to stay put and tolerate whatever they're given.

---

fanuzzir wrote:
I wanted to thank you both for such an illuminating take on the immigration issue as it relates not only to the U. S. then and now but to the U. S. and Europe spectrum of economic/legal systems. It's a fascinating approach you both take that draws me into the question of globalization and its power to destabilize societies with its influx and outgoes of labor and capital. It also makes me think again about the immigration of the early twentieth century not as a heyday of the "melting pot." but as an early version of the social problems you discuss in your posts.



chadadanielleKR wrote:



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Choisya wrote:
On the general subject of immigration, which has been raised on this thread, perhaps Americans do not know that recent legislation in the European Union gives rights to every European citizen to travel freely within Europe to seek work and accommodation (without passport or visa restrictions). There are approx 470 million Europeans with those rights, which are in addition to the immigration quotas Europe has accepted as part of its burden in settling immigrants from other parts of the world and to seekers of asylum from political oppression. I do not have access to recent figures but I suspect that the rate of immigration to Europe now exceeds that rate of immigration to the USA.

With regard to the 'Jungle', I fear that some immigrants are bringing aspects of their Jungles to their host countries, as well as much needed skills. The rate of sex and drug related crime has, for instance, increased in the UK with the recent influx of Eastern European immigration, and health & safety measures in some industries are being flouted by bosses and workers who have not previously worked to the same standards. Whereas earlier immigrants from the old Commonwealth understood English, and English has been taught in all Western European schools since WWII, most Eastern Europeans are not English speakers and sometimes have difficulty in understanding what is required of them. Upton Sinclair would have found much to write about in the

new European Jungle

Here is a map of the new European Union, which will soon include Turkey:-

http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/europe/european-union/map.htm
Message Edited by Choisya on 12-30-200608:07 AM



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The jungle makes me wonder about the plight of the immigrants in countries like China and India where there is an organized society, a growing mass market and a growing taskforce of unskilled, poor and migrant people. What strikes me in the jungle is the scale of the "whole business": tons of food processed every day, thousands of unskilled workers and huge production facilities. Such scale was rather new for the time although the industrialization was well under way in Europe already. But in fast-developping countries of today...

---

---

[Choisya]

Message Edited by Choisya on 01-22-200706:45 PM