After the Fact Interactive: USDA Government Inspected

This module invites students to follow muckraker Upton Sinclair into the political maelstrom caused by his 1905 investigation, The Jungle, whose lurid account of tainted meats and murderous working conditions inside the nation’s massive new meatpacking factories revolted and shocked the American public. When the outcry was taken up by President Theodore Roosevelt, the scandal evolved into a crucial proving ground for Roosevelt’s vision of a federal government equal to powerful trusts such as the meatpackers. Students will use newspaper articles, editorial cartoons, Jungle excerpts, Roosevelt letters and speeches, and Congressional testimony to investigate the enactment of the nation’s first comprehensive food inspection legislation.