The Jungle exposed awful working conditions for American meatpackers. It wasn’t long after his tales of diseased, rotten, and infected flesh frightened the public that the United States saw a significant reform movement, and new federal food safety regulations were passed. The reformers, also known as progressives, arose in response to the increasing number of problems caused by the growth of industry and metropolitan regions in the United States. As a starting point, progressives focused on removing government corruption and alleviating poverty.
As the new century dawned, progressives began aiming at giant corporations like Standard Oil and U.S. Steel for their unethical practices. Progressives revealed a lack of competition, inflated prices, and “wage slavery.” Those who were more progressive, on the other hand, had different ideas about how to deal with the problem of giant corporations. Some leftists called for anti-monopoly legislation to break up large corporations. A different group of people thought that governmental regulation at all levels would be more successful. A growing percentage of the people supported socialism, which gives the government ownership of businesses. Owners of large industries, who insisted on being left alone to run their businesses as they saw fit, shot down all of these suggestions. Before publishing The Jungle, the publishers debated whether or not to bring awareness to the atrocities depicted in the book.