The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair, was a very touching and inspiring story. Sinclair aimed for our hearts, but instead hit our stomachs. The Jungle is a story of hardships and problems, some successes and many failures as a family tries to achieve the "American Dream". In this book, "The myth of Jurgis Ruckus' failure is the other side of the myth of Horatio Alger's success." (xxvi) Although this book was written about the hardships of a family, it was not just a story to read and feel sympathy for the family, but had many "real life" reasons behind the events that happened and happened. Sinclair wanted to open people's eyes and make them aware of what was happening and ultimately wanted to start a revolution to change the political system from capitalism to socialism. The time period was approximately 1905-2006. Immigrants, like Jurgis and his family, came to America in hopes of creating a new life and living the "American Dream." They didn't know what they were getting into and how hard the "American Dream" life was. Families came to find new lives, decent jobs, save money, live in a big house, have food on the table, yet many things prevented them from doing so. According to Horatio Alger the "America Dream" was the dream of going from rags to riches. It could only be achieved with a lot of hard work, motivation and self-determination, and in the end, Alger's theory of the "American Dream" was proven wrong, as proven in many ways. The life of Jurgis and his family shows in many ways how much it was a struggle to achieve the "American Dream". There were a lot of immigrant families who flocked to America and the first thing they did was try to find work; except it was... half paper... satisfaction guaranteed thanks to the FDA. It must be checked and approved by them. Furthermore, on everything we buy as consumers, we can read what is in the product thanks to the label; the FDA requires every ingredient to be listed. Alongside the FDA was the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. This put a strain on and required slaughterhouses to clean up. Hygiene became a major issue and slaughterhouses were now inspected for cleanliness. Additionally, each animal carcass must be inspected and pass inspection before it can be processed and used further; it had to be freed from infections and diseases. These changes did not happen overnight. It took some time and even now it gets better and better every year. The structure of government has changed and is still improved every year to protect and satisfy the common good of the people.