Upton Sinclair

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Upton Beall Sinclair Jr.

Born:	20 September 1878 Baltimore, Maryland
Died:	25 November 1968 Bound Brook, New Jersey
Occupation:	Novelist, writer, journalist, political activist
Nationality:	American

Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) , was a prolific American author who wrote over 90 books in many genres and was widely considered one of the best investigative journalists of his era. Often advocating socialist views, he achieved considerable popularity in the first half of the Twentieth Century. He gained particular fame for his novel, The Jungle (1906), which dealt with conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry and caused a public uproar that partly contributed to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906.[1]

1 Biography
2 Political and social activism
3 The Lanny Budd series
4 Sinclair in culture
5 Films
6 Works
7 External links

[edit] Biography

Upton Sinclair was born on September 20th, 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland and later, in 1888, moved to New York City. Upton married his first wife, Meta Fuller in 1900.

An early success was the Civil War novel Manassas, written in 1903 and published a year later. Originally projected as the opening book of a trilogy, the success of The Jungle caused him to drop his plans, although he did revise Manassas decades later by "moderating some of the exuberance of the earlier version"^{[citation needed]}. The Jungle brought to light many major issues in America such as poverty and other social wrongs.

Sinclair created a socialist commune named Helicon Hall Colony in 1906 with proceeds from his novel The Jungle. One of those who joined was the novelist and playwright Sinclair Lewis, who worked there as a janitor.

Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

Sinclair made several bids for national office. His first was in 1906, the Socialist Party of America sponsored his candidacy for Congress in New Jersey. He lost with just over 3% of the votes.^[1] ^[2]

The colony burned down in 1907, apparently from arson. After the famed fire of Helicon Hall, he moved to Arden, Delaware where many Georgist, Socialist, and Communist "Free Thinkers" lived including Mother Bloor's son Hamilton "Buzz" Ware. Some say that he worked in a tree house behind his home during these years.

Around 1911, Sinclair's wife ran off with the poet Harry Kemp (later known as the Dunes Poet of Provincetown, Massachusetts). Within a few years, Sinclair moved to Pasadena, California, where he founded the state's chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1920s. Sinclair went on to run unsuccessfully for Congress twice on the Socialist ticket: in 1920 for the House of Representatives, and in 1922 for the Senate.^[3]

Sinclair's 1928 book Boston created controversy by proclaiming the innocence of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, anarchists who were accused of a murder-robbery in that city. Sinclair faced what he would later call "the most difficult ethical problem of my life," when he was told in confidence by Sacco and Vanzetti's former attorney Fred Moore that they were guilty and how their alibis were supposedly arranged.^[4] However, in the letter revealing that discussion with Moore, Sinclair also wrote, "I had heard that Moore was using drugs. I knew that he had parted from the defense committee after the bitterest of quarrels … Moore admitted to me that the men themselves had never admitted their guilt to him." Although the two men were ultimately executed, this episode has been used by some to claim that Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty and that Sinclair knew that when he wrote his novel. However, this account has been disputed by Sinclair biographer Greg Mitchell.

In 1934 Sinclair made his most successful run for office, this time as a Democrat. Sinclair's platform for the California gubernatorial race of 1934, known as EPIC (End Poverty in California), galvanized the support of the Democratic Party, and Sinclair gained its nomination. Conservatives in California were themselves galvanized by this, as they saw it as an attempted Communist takeover of their state and used massive political propaganda portraying Sinclair as a Communist, even as he was being portrayed by American and Soviet Communists as a capitalist following the Que Viva Mexico! debacle. Robert A. Heinlein, the science fiction author, was deeply involved in Sinclair's campaign, a point which Heinlein tried to obscure from later biographies, as Heinlein tried to keep his personal politics separate from his public image as an author.^{[citation needed]}

Sinclair was defeated by Frank F. Merriam in the election and largely abandoned EPIC and politics to return to writing. However, the race of 1934 would become known as the first race to use modern campaign techniques like motion pictures.

Of his gubernatorial bids, Sinclair remarked in 1951: "The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to 'End Poverty in California' I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them."^[5]

Sinclair was married two more times. Later in his life, he moved to Buckeye, Arizona, before moving to Bound Brook, New Jersey near the end of his life.

He took an interest in psychic phenomena and experimented with telepathy, writing a book titled Mental Radio, published in 1930.

His papers, photographs, and first editions of most of his books are found at the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

The Upton Sinclair House in Monrovia, California, is now a National Historic Monument.

[edit] Political and social activism

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Sinclair believed that the main point of The Jungle was lost on the public, overshadowed by his descriptions of the unhealthy conditions in packing plants. The public health concerns dealt with in The Jungle are actually far less significant than the human tragedy lived by his main character and other workers in the plants. His main goal for the book was to demonstrate the inhumane conditions of the wage earner under capitalism, not to inspire public health reforms in how the packing was done. Indeed, Sinclair lamented the effect of his book and the public uproar that resulted: "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." Still, the fame and fortune he gained from publishing The Jungle enabled him to write books on almost every issue of social injustice in the Twentieth Century. [2]

Sinclair is well-known for his principle: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." which has been quoted in many political books, essays, articles, and other forms of media.

[edit] The Lanny Budd series

Between 1940 and 1953 Sinclair wrote 11 novels about an American named Lanny Budd that, read in sequence, detailed much of the political history of the Western world in the first half of the twentieth century. Almost totally forgotten today, they were all bestsellers upon publication and were published in 21 countries. The third book in the series, Dragon's Teeth, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1943.

Long out of print, the Lanny Budd series have recently been re-issued by Simon Publications. For technical reasons, each original volume is issued in two parts, forming a 22-volume set.

Lanny Budd series: World's End (1940) Between Two Worlds (1941) Dragon's Teeth (1942) Wide Is the Gate (1943) The Presidential Agent (1944) Dragon Harvest (1945) A World to Win (1946) A Presidential Mission (1947) One Clear Call (1948) O Shepherd, Speak! (1949) The Return of Lanny Budd (1953)

The series is more properly called The World's End Series (Library of Congress; Viking Press, New York).

[edit] Sinclair in culture

In Sinclair Lewis' novel It Can't Happen Here, Upton Sinclair is depicted as an eccentric and a supporter of fascism out of opportunistic motives, who is rewarded for his support of an American fascist government by being made ambassador to Great Britain.

Sinclair is extensively featured in Harry Turtledove's American Empire trilogy, in which the American Socialist Party succeeds to become a major force in US politics. He wins the 1920 and 1924 presidential elections and becomes the first Socialist President of the United States, his inaugration attended by crowds of jubilant militants waving Red Flags. However, the actual policies which Turtledove attributes to him, once in power, are not particularly radical.

Sinclair is featured as one of the main characters in Chris Bachelder's satirical fictional book 'U.S.!: a Novel'. Sinclair is the frequently assassinated and resurrected personification of the contemporary failings of the American-left and portrayed as an ineffectual and out-of-touch reformer always trying to implement American Socialism.

[edit] Films

Upton Sinclair was the writer or producer of several films, including his involvement, arranged by Charlie Chaplain, in 1930-32 with Sergei Eisenstein in Mexico for Que Viva Mexico!, which turned into a debacle. See [3]

His 1937 novel, The Gnomobile, was the basis of a 1967 Disney musical motion picture, The Gnome-Mobile. See [4].

His 1927 novel Oil! was the basis of There Will Be Blood (2007), starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Little Miss Sunshine star Paul Dano. It was screenwritten, produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia). See IMDb entry

[edit] Works

Courtmartialed - 1898
Saved By the Enemy - 1898
The Fighting Squadron - 1898
A Prisoner of Morro - 1898
A Soldier Monk - 1898
A Gauntlet of Fire - 1899
Holding the Fort (story) - 1899
A Soldier's Pledge - 1899
Wolves of the Navy - 1899
Springtime and Harvest - 1901
The Journal of Arthur Stirling - 1903
Off For West Point - 1903
From Port to Port - 1903
On Guard - 1903
A Strange Cruise - 1903
The West Point Rivals - 1903
A West Point Treasure - 1903
A Cadet's Honor - 1903
Cliff, the Naval Cadet - 1903
The Cruise of the Training Ship - 1903
Prince Hagan - 1903
Manassas - 1904
A Captain of Industry - 1906
The Jungle - 1906
The Millennium (four-act drama) - 1907
The Overman - 1907
The Industrial Republic - 1907
The Metropolis - 1908
The Money Changers - 1908
Samuel The Seeker - 1909
Good Health and How We Won It - 1909
The Machine (novel) - 1911
King Coal - 1917
The Profits of Religion - 1918
Jimmie Higgins - 1919
The Brass Check - 1919
THE SPY - 1920
The Goose-step A Study of American Education - 1923
The Millennium (novel form) - 1924
The Goslings - 1924
Oil! - 1927
Boston - 1928
Mental Radio - 1930
Roman Holiday - 1931
American Outpost - 1932
Upton Sinclair presents William Fox - 1933
The Epic Plan for California - 1934
I, Candidate For Governor: And How I Got Licked. - 1935
Co-op: a Novel of Living Together - 1936
No Pasaran!: a Novel of the Battle of Madrid - 1937
The Gnomobile"- 1937
The Flivver King - 1937
Little Steel- 1938
World's End - 1940
Between Two Worlds - 1941
Dragon's Teeth - 1942
Wide is the Gate - 1943
Presidential Agent - 1944
Dragon Harvest - 1945
A World to Win - 1946
Presidential Mission - 1947
One Clear Call - 1948
O Shepherd, Speak! - 1949
Schenk Stefan! - 1951
The Return of Lanny Budd - 1953
The Cup of Fury - 1956
What Didymus Did - UK 1954 / It Happened to Didymus - US 1958
The Autobiography of Upton Sinclair - 1962 written with the help of Maeve Elizabeth Flynn III