“Liney, a store clerk, stands behind the counter at the Rozier Family Store, a family-owned grocery market in Los Angeles. This photo was taken in 1906.”
Doris Stocker
By Bassano (1906)
For The Rotary Photographic Series (British Postcards)
La Mode illustrée, no. 9, 4 mars 1906, Paris. Berthe en dentelle de Venise. Ville de Paris / Bibliothèque Forney
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was first published on 26 February 1906 (some sources cite the 28th).
Sinclair spent 7 weeks working in the meatpacking plants in Chicago before writing the novel, which appeared in serialized form in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason in 1905. 5 publishers rejected the novel, considering it “too shocking” and “gloom and horror unrelieved.” Sinclair was about to self-publish the novel when Doubleday agreed (Sinclair’s self-published version and Doubleday’s were published on the same day).
Dedicated “To the Workingmen of America,” Sinclair had hoped that readers and reviewers would focus on the exploitation of workers, but most of the attention was paid to the appalling lack of food safety in the meatpacking facilities.
President Theodore Roosevelt (who had once called Sinclair, “hysterical, unbalanced, and untruthful”) was so outraged by the conditions Sinclair wrote about that he sent investigators to Chicago. While the owners had cleaned their factories before the investigators arrived, they were still able to substantiate most of Sinclair’s claims. The Federal Meat Inspection Act (which authorized inspection of livestock before and after slaughter, and sanitary standards for facilities) and the Pure Food and Drug Act were both passed in June 1906. Sinclair opposed the legislation, complaining that the inspections would be paid by taxpayers and not the corporations. He famously complained, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”
The Jungle sold 25,000 copies in its first 6 weeks and has never been out of print.
Love Letter (from an unidentified series) Kesobun 「懸想文」Yamamura Kôka (Toyonari) (Japanese, 1885–1942) Japanese Late Meiji era 1906
Female Nude Seated in Water Ichijô Narumi (Japanese, 1877–1910) Publisher/ Japanese Postcard Club (Nihon hagaki kurabu) Japanese Late Meiji era 1906 – Buy Postcards
