Why The Jungle?

Sinclair began researching the novel in 1904. He told associates that his goal was to write the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the Labor Movement. In the same way that Beecher Stowe’s novel about the abuses of slavery catalyzed the abolitionist movement in the 1850’s, so too did Sinclair hope to create a work of art that would turn public opinion and sentiment towards the thousands of immigrants and laborers who risked their lives in the unsafe working conditions of America’s factories and manufacturing plants.