Upton Sinclair⁠

The most insistent and outspoken of the muckrakers. Began as a novelist, but his art submerged by propaganda—a profound suspicion of capitalism and all its ways.

The Jungle (1906); a story of the packing houses and the immigrant: the technique of “speeding up” and the labor scrap-heap. The social consequences of the profit principle—saving everything but the squeal of the hog and the health of the laborer.

King Coal (1917); a story of the Rockefeller coal fields in Colorado and the miners’ union. Probably his most skillful story.

Numerous other titles, among them: The Brass Check, an examination of the American newspaper—the charge that these are the tools of plutocracy; The Goose Step, an examination of the American university—the charge that these serve wealth; The Goslings, an attack upon the public school as an agent of capitalism.