Sinclair, Upton

▪ American novelist

in full  Upton Beall Sinclair  

born Sept. 20, 1878, Baltimore, Md., U.S.

died Nov. 25, 1968, Bound Brook, N.J.

 American novelist and polemicist for socialism and other causes; his The Jungle is a landmark among naturalistic, proletarian novels.

      Sinclair graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1897 and did graduate work at Columbia University, supporting himself by journalistic writing. The Jungle (1906), his sixth novel and first popular success, was written when he was sent by the socialist weekly newspaper Appeal to Reason to Chicago to investigate conditions in the stockyards. Though intended to create sympathy for the exploited and poorly treated immigrant workers in the meat-packing industry, The Jungle instead aroused widespread public indignation at the quality of and impurities in processed meats and thus helped bring about the passage of federal food-inspection laws. Sinclair ironically commented at the time, “I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” The Jungle is the most enduring of the works of the “muckrakers” (see muckraker). Published at Sinclair's own expense after several publishers rejected it, it became a best-seller, and Sinclair used the proceeds to open Helicon Hall, a cooperative-living venture in Englewood, N.J. The building was destroyed by fire in 1907 and the project abandoned.

      A long series of other topical novels followed, none as popular as The Jungle; among them were Oil! (1927), based on the Teapot Dome Scandal, and Boston (1928), based on the Sacco-Vanzetti case. Sinclair's works were highly popular in Russia both before and immediately after the Revolution of 1917. Later his active opposition to the communist regime caused a decline in his reputation there, but it was revived temporarily in the late 1930s and '40s by his antifascist writings. Sinclair again reached a wide audience with the Lanny Budd series, 11 contemporary historical novels beginning with World's End (1940) that were constructed around an implausible antifascist hero who happens to be on hand for all the momentous events of the day.

      During the economic crisis of the 1930s, Sinclair organized the EPIC (End Poverty in California) socialist reform movement; in 1934 he was defeated as Democratic candidate for governor. Of his autobiographical writings, American Outpost: A Book of Reminiscences (1932; also published as Candid Reminiscences: My First Thirty Years) was reworked and extended in The Autobiography of Upton Sinclair (1962); My Lifetime in Letters (1960) is a collection of letters written to Sinclair.

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