Uber muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair died 40 years ago today. Those worried about the current state of food production may turn to new industry bibles Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore’s Dilemma. But long before Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan rifled, or could rifle for that matter, through the country’s proverbial pantries and kitchens, Sinclair wrote The Jungle, a 1906 expose of the meat packing industry so grim and incendiary as to cause the U.S. to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act. It’s thanks to him that The Naked Gun scene where they find the finger in their hot dogs at the baseball games is funny because it’s absurd…and not real.
Also today…
1867: Alfred Nobel commits to his…explosive… idea by patenting dynamite.
1947: The Red Scare intensifies as the House Un-American Activities Committee blacklists the “Hollywood Ten.”
1963: President John F. Kennedy reaches a final resting place at Arlington Cemetery.
1986: Iran Contra Affair.
1992: Czechoslovakia becomes the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Tags: alfred nobel, arlington cemetery, blacklist, czech republic, czechoslovakia, dynamite, eric schlosser, fast food nation, hollywood ten, iran contra affair, john f. kennedy, michael pollan, patent, pure food and drug act, red scare, slovakia, the jungle, the omnivore's dilemna, upton sinclair
He also founded EPIC (End Poverty in California) and ran for Governor of California in 1934. But he was the victim of a harsh, mud-slinging campaign. No… I mean, literally, mud-slinging. The big Hollywood movie studios produced fake newsreels showing dirt-covered “poor” people professing their admiration for Sinclair: “Yaw, I’d vote for Sinclaurrrr”. Afraid that the state would be over-run by these “low-lives”, Californians voted for Sinclair’s opponent, Frank Merriam. This was the first time in history that television was used to smother a campaign, and the beginning of a beautiful relationship between politics and the tube.
A good man was Upton.