In the early 20th century, the Chicago meat-packing industry used immigrant labor, especially from Eastern Europe. Working conditions and sanitary practices were scandalously bad, as revealed in the Upton Sinclair political novel, The Jungle, published on February 26, 1906. Later that year, Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act on the same day, June 30, 1906. Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
