Group items tagged

Talks about the dangers and accidents in meatpacking industries, as well as complaining about how unnecessary these accidents are. A little carefulness and selflessness on the part of the companies would go a long way.

Mary Shelley's perceptions of science and the dangerous power it potentially holds are intuitive. Modern day science deals daily with the exact issues of which Shelley was apparently keenly aware. She introduces ethics to the study of science, even gives science a conscious. As the monster acts on Frankenstein's conscious, some would say that Mary Shelley writes literature to act as science's conscious. It was as if she acknowledged that the future of science, if uncontrolled, could be disastrous. science and the negative effects. shelley is trying to point out the danger of community too controlled by science

Discusses the dual identity of Frankenstein and his monster as doppelgangers, as well as the tragic flaws in Frankenstein himself. It discusses Frankenstein's transformation from innocently curious student to crazy, egotistical scientist

This whole site talks about awful treatment of the workers in packing industries. It's a lot like Fast Food Nation and the Jungle, because it gives both specific stories and overall points about the dangers that the workers face, and how little the companies care about such dangers.

This article is one that describes the depressing plight of Kenny Dobbins, a worker at the Monfort/ Con-Agra Beef Plant in Greeley, Colorado. A hard working and loyal worker, Dobbins suffered injuries, saved lives, and broke strikes during his years, only to be rewarded by getting fired after suffering a heart attack and seeking compensation. A recurring theme seen in Fast Food Nation and The Jungle was that profits are the only concern for businessmen, as the worker is indespensable and replaceable.

This article supports the claims that were made in FFN, stating that little has changed since the publication of The Jungle. The immigrants are still abused and treated unfairly, though from different parts of the worlds. Unions are still far from an existent factor, and the worker is still treated unjustly.

"the conditions in factories were hazardous, and their pay was lower than that of a man. In fact the husbands controlled their wives wages. At the same time the middle and upper class women were to stay idle and only to be decorative symbols of their husband's economic success." In the lower classes, women worked for low wages in dangerous conditions; in the higher classes, respectable women were not permitted to work, and were simply symbols of their husbands' success. Regardless of socioeconomic status, women were controlled, and had to be prim, proper, and feminine without appearing too independent or self-reliant.

Although Sparknotes is a very stereotypcial website on novels, it's still a very effective source of information. It makes blatantly clear the fact that the rich, aristocratic upper class is mainly responsible for the poverty and economic devastation in the country. The rich get richer at the cost of the destruction of the lower class. The workers are treated poorly in an effort to keep them desperate, which in turn keeps the rich people rich. Selfishness and greed, key themes in practically every novel read so far, is clarified and pointed out. The condition of the migrants is no accident, it's an intentional, deliberate plot to oppress them. Their only hope is through unity.

show how people are beginning to hold fast food companies accountable and are starting to take legal action

"high-pressure marketing promotes junk food that makes everyone fat, resulting from the heartless unloading of unskilled and dangerous work on youthful racial minorities"

This article catalogs the evolution of how we eat, and included inside is fast food. This shows how fast food is unhealthy and the corporate companies don't care about anything but money, and the food is not what we think it is.

This article by PBS chronicles the evolution of the workers in the meat packing industry. The article tells of the meat packing industry revealed by Sinclair to present conditions. The average hourly wage for meat packing workers has fallen since the 1970's. The article also tells of the poor working conditions "Fast Food Nation" describes and how meat packing is one of the most dangerous jobs in America.

Schlosser says in his book how he feels that little has changed since the times of the chicago meat packing trusts, and this pbs article speaks in support of that claim. It gives examples of how conditions in 2005 are "that the working conditions in America's meat packing plants were so bad they violated basic human and worker rights"

Meatpacking industry through the years. This article highlights the way that the meatpacking industry and its ethics/conditions have changed (or not) throughout the years. It argues that things are pretty much as bad as the times of The Jungle.

This article gives historical information on the meat packing industry of the early 1900's. The article tells of the progressive movement of the age which supported reforms. The article tells of the response to "The Jungle" and the innovative aspects of the new processing regulations. The article also gives a short biography about Sinclair's childhood to his death.

"Unskilled immigrant men did the backbreaking and often dangerous work, laboring in dark and unventilated rooms, hot in summer and unheated in winter." The article shows how cruel the conditions of the factory worker were. And since the work force was unskilled and immigrants, they were often taken advantage of because they knew no better

The ethical issues addressed in The Jungle and how they relate to the bills passed after the publication. It talks about how Roosevelt responded to the book and passed many new restrictions on the Chicago meatpacking district, as well as businesses all over the country.

Another excellent site commentating on Fast Food Nation. Honestly, I fail to see the point of searching for most of these commentaries. Nearly none of these sites about the novels say anything explicitly new or interesting which the novels did not. They're just encapsulations of the same thing. After the class puts this together, we will have hundreds of summaries of the same dumb novels.

To go along with The Jungle, the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire in New York City was yet another wakeup call for poor factory conditions. The fire occurred in an overcrowded factory filled with mostly young women and girls. It was a real life companion to the poor conditions described in The Jungle.

Reports are out: modern day meatpacking is still considered to be one imposing extreme hazard to the worker. This is only one of the many modern instances of ethical injustice as employers continue to intimidate their workers from creating unions, as described with Fast Food Nation and McDonald's. It is a marriage of Sinclair's eye-opening description of the meatpacking industry and Schlosser's depiction of contemporary business ethics. 

This is a great source and annotation showing how the horrors of the meatpacking industry first brought up in the Jungle, and later in Fast Food Nation are still going on today. The terrible ethics of these big businesses are still a problem to this day.

You guys bring up valid points. Honestly it gets frustrating hearing the same topic being incessantly repeated, but it still is a good source about these novels and the poor treatment of the workers. I like how your second quote even relates it to modern times, just like FFN

"In the 1870s, several large packing firms with headquarters at Chicago came to dominate the U.S. meatpacking industry, namely Armour and Company, Swift and Company, and Libby, McNeill and Libby."

This article tells the history of the meatpacking industry. The source gives fantastic historical background information for "The Jungle". The history goes from the beginning of meatpacking in America to the late 1900's. This source can also relate to the current horrible conditions of the workers in the meatpacking factories.

"By the end of the twentieth century, meatpacking work was done mostly by an immigrant and impoverished workforce laboring in dirty, dangerous surroundings, as the decline of organized labor and the rise of government deregulation pushed the industry into a state not so different from the days of Sinclair's The Jungle."

This quote is designed for the consumers, as the businesses show no care for what happens to the people. As long as they provide the profits, the business can let them live unhealthy

interview with a fed up chicago cook.

"Although the restaurant industry is one of the region's leading employers, it is dominated by low-wage, unhealthy and dangerous jobs" Due to the economic hardships many people are forced to work in this perpetual cycle of abuse, and forced to work in filthy conditions.

I think that this source is extremely interesting to our study of the strife of the laborer because it brings a first- hand report. Reviews of the novels we have read bring up interesting points, but until we hear about first hand accounts from people like this cook, we can't really speculate on what it is like to live a life like that.