American Socialism
It's important to understand American Socialism in the 19th century. Socialist Journalist Upton Sinclair wasn't only trying to address the meatpacking industry, he was critiquing Capitalism. He believed that Capitalism was the root cause of many social issues. 
Capitalism was losing support from American citizens. Many Americans believed that capitalism was failing because of the phenomenon of monopolies. Monopolists would practice a “concentration of power”, which was the leading issue faced by capitalist nations (Schmitz Jr., 35). Laissez-faire philosophy restricted government intervention of business corporations. Businesses took advantage of this by controlling the “conditions of production and the prices paid by the people” (Schmitz Jr., 99). In a sense, this is business as usual. Companies make their own decisions on how their product is made, and they set their own prices according to the market’s demand. However, laissez-faire allowed monopolies to gain complete control over their product and mark their own wages, without intervention from the government. Therefore, monopolies possessed “tremendous power for exploiting the community at large” (Schmitz Jr., i). Monopolists could lower wages as they pleased, use the cheapest means of production with disregard to workers’ safety, and charge the community high dollar prices. Intuitively, this would lead to widespread poverty, which causes individuals to either starve, or resort to crime (Reef). 
Upton Sinclair’s response to this phenomenon was socialism. These ideals were backed by socialists, who fought “corruption and monopoly” (Strong, 2). This movement allowed workers to fight capitalists. Moreover, acts involving uniform legislation on social security was held in the 1930’s (Strong, 2). Socialism involved many economic demands from the working class. These economic demands included “minimum wages, free medical care, the eight hour day, improved working conditions, and social security” (Strong, 7). Sinclair’s expose of the meat industry’s cruel working conditions, low wages, long hours, and a lack of medical/financial aid from the government served as a pillar in this period of socialism.
*These aspects will be reiterated throughout this project, predominantly in the “progressive era”. Socialism was a progressive movement, and was a staple in the progressive era.

Items