Brittany R. Clark

WARNING: TODAY’S LECTURE CONTAINS GROSS IMAGES.

 Huge economic growth  Unequal distribution of wealth  Industry expanding into new areas  More work in factories, on railroads. Less on farms.  Mechanization of industry  Cheaper methods of production  Unskilled labor and a foreman  Immigration boom  From Eastern Europe instead of Western Europe  Search for the American Dream through unskilled work  Overcrowding tenements as poverty rises  Industrial cities filled with working class people

 Donated large portions of their wealth  But earned wealth it on the backs of the poor  Accused of:  Overworking employees and paying low wages  Squashing competition by any means necessary  Paying off high level government officials Vanderbilt – Railroads Rockefeller – Oil Carnegie – Steel Morgan – Finance

 Widespread social activism and political reform  Laissez faire capitalism isn’t working out for everyone  Out of control monopolies  Income inequality  Reform movements spring up:  Labor unions  Sherman Anti-Trust Act  17 th Amendment  Women’s Suffrage

 Before 1890 newspapers largely owned by political parties  Easier to get your message across if you own a newspaper  Easier to sell papers with a built-in audience  Run by party members who were then granted favorable government appointments  Around this time owners realized there was more money in being less partisan

 Opposing newspaper owners  Either would had a monopoly without the other  Who can sell more papers?  Hearst undercharges  Sensationalism and yellow journalism  Finally: who can tell the story better? VS.

 Investigative journalism aimed at exposing the ills of society  A response to yellow journalism  Still used sensationalism to get the word out

 Sinclair goes undercover at a meatpacking plant  Dedicated to “The Workingmen of America”  Sinclair meant it to expose poor working conditions  Public more concerned with the production of the meat  In response, President Teddy Roosevelt:  Passes the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act  Creates the Bureau of Chemistry – today called the Food and Drug Administration  Today we can more clearly see the worker’s rights issues “I aimed for the public’s heart, and by accident hit it in the stomach.” – Upton Sinclair

There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together. This is no fairy story and no joke; the meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one--there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit. There was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage."

2012 – ABC News does a report on the “pink slime” in processed beef 2011 and 2013 – Chipotle releases commercials demonstratin g that they get their meat from organic farms 2010 – Celebrity Chef Jamie Oliver produces Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution