Not to be confused with his contemporary, Sinclair Lewis, novelist and social critic.
Upton Sinclair
Sinclair in 1900
Born
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr.
(1878-09-20)September 20, 1878
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Died
November 25, 1968(1968-11-25) (aged 90)
Bound Brook, New Jersey, U.S.
Resting place
Rock Creek Cemetery
Education
City College of New York (BA) Columbia University
Occupations
Novelist
writer
journalist
political activist
politician
Notable work
The Jungle
Political party
Socialist (1902–1934)
Democratic (1934–1968)
Spouses
Meta Fuller
(m. 1900; div. 1911)
Mary Craig Kimbrough
(m. 1913; died 1961)
Mary Elizabeth Willis
(m. 1961; died 1967)
Relatives
Arthur Sinclair (great-grandfather) Wallis Simpson (cousin) Corinne Mustin (cousin)
Signature
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California. He wrote nearly 100 books and other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well known and popular in the first half of the 20th century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.
In 1906, Sinclair acquired particular fame for his classic muck-raking novel, The Jungle, which exposed labor and sanitary conditions in the U.S. meatpacking industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.[1] In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muck-raking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the "free press" in the United States. Four years after publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created.[2]Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence".[3] He is also well remembered for the quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."[4] He used this line in speeches and the book about his campaign for governor as a way to explain why the editors and publishers of the major newspapers in California would not treat seriously his proposals for old age pensions and other progressive reforms.[4] Many of his novels can be read as historical works. Writing during the Progressive Era, Sinclair describes the world of the industrialized United States from both the working man's and the industrialist's points of view. Novels such as King Coal (1917), The Coal War (published posthumously), Oil! (1927), and The Flivver King (1937) describe the working conditions of the coal, oil, and auto industries at the time.
The Flivver King describes the rise of Henry Ford, his "wage reform" and his company's Sociological Department, to his decline into antisemitism as publisher of The Dearborn Independent. King Coal confronts John D. Rockefeller Jr., and his role in the 1914 Ludlow Massacre in the coal fields of Colorado.
Sinclair was an outspoken socialist and ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a nominee from the Socialist Party. He was also the Democratic Party candidate for governor of California during the Great Depression, running under the banner of the End Poverty in California campaign, but was defeated in the 1934 election.
^"The Jungle: Upton Sinclair's Roar Is Even Louder to Animal Advocates Today". hsus.org. The Humane Society of the United States. March 10, 2006. Archived from the original on January 6, 2010. Retrieved June 10, 2010.
^"Upton Sinclair". Press in America – via PBworks.com..
^"Books: Uppie's Goddess". Time. November 18, 1957. Archived from the original on March 28, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2020..
^ abSinclair, Upton (1994). I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-520-08197-0.
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee...
muckraker author UptonSinclair, known for his efforts to expose corruption in government and business in the early 20th century. In 1904 Sinclair spent seven...
The UptonSinclair House is a historic house at 464 N. Myrtle Avenue, Monrovia, California. Built in 1923, it was the home of American novelist Upton Sinclair...
often had a major impact as well, such as those by UptonSinclair. In his 1906 novel The Jungle, Sinclair exposed the unsanitary and inhumane practices of...
1934 by socialist writer UptonSinclair (best known as author of The Jungle). The movement formed the basis for Sinclair's campaign for Governor of California...
but fictional exposés often had a major impact, too, such as those by UptonSinclair. In contemporary American usage, the term can refer to journalists or...
Frank Merriam against former Socialist Party member turned Democrat UptonSinclair, author of The Jungle. A strong third party challenge came from Progressive...
the land became the Ferncliff Forest Game Refuge and Forest Preserve. UptonSinclair, author of The Jungle, wrote Astor an open letter, which he describes...
Mary Craig Sinclair (1882–1961) was a writer and the wife of UptonSinclair. She was born Mary Craig Kimbrough in Greenwood, Mississippi, on February 12...
War. Vernon Press. p. 278. ISBN 978-1-62273-281-4. Sinclair, Upton. The Autobiography of UptonSinclair. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1962. This...
July 6, 2010 UptonSinclair, The Autobiography of UptonSinclair (NY: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1962), p. 242 Leon Harris, UptonSinclair, American...
cause. In 1906, UptonSinclair published The Jungle, a book which exposed the filthy conditions of Chicago slaughterhouses. Sinclair wrote the book while...
directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, loosely based on the 1927 novel Oil! by UptonSinclair. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a silver miner turned...
Steinbeck (1940) In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow (1942) Dragon's Teeth by UptonSinclair (1943) Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin (1944) A Bell for Adano...
Germany and the upcoming gubernatorial election, in particular candidate UptonSinclair. Herman and Marion go for a stroll, where they bond over discussions...
Edward H. Dewey, Bernarr Macfadden, Frank McCoy, Edward Earle Purinton, UptonSinclair and Wallace Wattles. All of these writers were either involved in the...
G. (1978). "Book Review – The Coal War: A Sequel to "King Coal" by UptonSinclair". The Western Historical Quarterly. 9 (2): 233. doi:10.2307/966845....
Network. Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Dover Thrift Editions., General Editor Paul Negri; Editor of The Jungle, Joslyn T Pine. Note: pp. vii-viii "Upton Sinclair"...
the creek's endpoint at Pershing Road. It was brought to notoriety by UptonSinclair in his exposé on the American meat packing industry titled The Jungle...
in the animated feature Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo! Nye portrayed UptonSinclair in the 2020 biopic Mank. Nye later competed on The Masked Singer spinoff...
Leader, "UptonSinclair's EPIC Switch: A Dilemma for American Socialists." Southern California Quarterly 62.4 (1980): 361–385. James N. Gregory, "Upton Sinclair's...
UptonSinclair Presents William Fox is a 1933 non-fiction work by the American writer UptonSinclair. Sinclair based the book on a series of interviews...
distinction. The term "white-collar worker" was coined in the 1930s by UptonSinclair, an American writer who referenced the word in connection to clerical...
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