Marissa Trobaugh: 3rd Quarter Research- Food Safety

Essay

In my research about food safety in the Progressive Era, I found there were two major acts passed in regards to public health. These two acts were the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These two acts were the government's response to public outcry in the early 1900's.

Muckrakers were the driving force behind the creation of both the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. Elizabeth Fee defines muckrakers as "writers of the progressive movement of the early twentieth century who exposed the corruption of businesses and the government to the public. The two main examples I researched were Upton Sinclair and Samuel Hopkins Adams. Both worked at McClure's Magazine during their writing careers, however it is unconfirmed if their employment times overlapped at all. Samuel Hopkins Adams wrote many articles about food safety, but Upton Sinclair had a much larger response to his works.

Upton Sinclair was born in 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland and studied to be an author at Colombia University . In 1904 Appeal to Reason Weekly offered him five hundred dollars (approximately $11, 500 today) to write an expose in meatpacking. This sparked his interest and led him to write The Jungle. Sinclair went undercover and worked as a mea packer for 7 weeks in preparation for his book writing process in Packingtown, Illinois. What he discovered was repulsive; manufacturers produced a product called "potted chicken". This was basically a mixture of pork fat, beef suet, hearts of beef, and veal waste. Workers also suffered from tragedies such as tuberculosis, severed fingers, and even blood poisoning. He also heard stories of employees falling into vats, only to be discovered as bones at a later date, if they were even discovered at all.

After Sinclair published his book, there was a wave of concern and outcry throughout the American public. In response to this, president Roosevelt launched his own investigation. His results were never published to the public, but he did say" the method of handling and preparing food products is uncleanly and dangerous to health". Sinclair was unhappy with the results of his book and he was quoted " I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach".

In order to enrich my paper with a little bit of local history, I visited the Huntsville Public Library to learn about Huntsville's role in food production. I met with the head of the archive department, Susanna Leberman. She pulled newspaper articles from the early 1900's for me to look at and gather information. From this I learned that Huntsville didn't play a particularly large role in food production, but at one time they were the Watercress Capitol of the United States.

In the early 1900's watercress was a much larger market than it is today. It is a leafy green vegetable that grows underneath the water of smaller bodies of water like ponds. In Huntsville, Frank Dennis and his family led the watercress revolution. He bought bodies of water from Moore's Mill to Meridianville. He also had concerns about the mass production of watercress because he did not want to rate quantity over quality. He improved the production by controlling insects and weeds, purifying the water used to grow the watercress, and conserving soil. However, his biggest accomplishment was probably being added to the Defense Department Procurement List. This list set the standards for food safety in regards to grocery stores and other vendors. From this admission he gained around seven hundred and fifty new grocers as year round customers.

In conclusion, the combined efforts of muckrakers and the American population, the United States began to move forward towards a healthier nation. This time period is a great example of Americans “being Americans”. The population fought for something they cared about, and in the end the result was very positive as these regulations are still being used today.

Sources

1. Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Safer and Healthier Foods

This article comes directly from the CDC website.

2. When and why was FDA formed

This explanation is given by the FDA themselves.

3. Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906

This is the actual act written out in full.

4. Progressive Era Reform

This is one of my least credible sources, it comes from a high school in New York. Oswego City School District Regents Exam Prep Center. The author is Thomas C. Caswell, I believe he does not work for the school anymore because his profile page was removed from the school's website.

Photos

Watercress

The rest of my photos are pictures I took on my phone of photo records at the Huntsville Public Library. I do not know much about them as they were in a box of photos from the early 1900s.