Progressive Era Politics
Current Events & Pop Culture
Available to teachers only as part of the Teaching Progressive Era Politics Teacher Pass
Teaching Progressive Era Politics Teacher Pass includes:
- Assignments & Activities
- Reading Quizzes
- Current Events & Pop Culture articles
- Discussion & Essay Questions
- Challenges & Opportunities
- Related Readings in Literature & History
Sample of Current Events & Pop Culture
New Take on The Jungle
A New York Times op-ed from January 2007 considers Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, his reform work and legacy.
Excerpt
Upton Sinclair wrote ‘The Jungle’ as a labor exposé. He hoped that the book, which was billed as ‘the ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ of wage slavery,’ would lead to improvements for the people to whom he dedicated it, ‘the workingmen of America.’ But readers of ‘The Jungle’ were less appalled by Sinclair’s accounts of horrific working conditions than by what they learned about their food. ‘I aimed at the public’s heart,’ he famously declared, ‘and by accident I hit it in the stomach.’”