Today in Labor June 30, 1906: United States Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act in response to Upton Sinclair's novel, “The Jungle,” which exposed atrocious sanitary conditions in Chicago meat packing industry. Sinclair intended his book not only to bring attention to the public health threat of the squalid working conditions, but also to the racism faced by Chicago’s largely immigrant meat workers, as well as the corruption of both the politicians and union officials. However, the public was most outraged by the prospect of getting food poisoning from the rotten meat.
