Journal Entry #2
Throughout The Jungle the working conditions in the factories have been obvious problems. Minor injuries resulting from small accidents at work in all of the factories could put a person out of work for months if they didn’t kill the person. The chemicals in every factory in packingtown and the surrounding areas that house the steel industry and other big companies are very harmful to the workers. When Jurgis worked in the fertilizer mill, the powdered fertilizer filled the air, got in the workers’ lungs and eyes and mouth and ears, and buried itself deep in the skin and clothes of the workers. The fertilizer had a horrendous smell and for the first few weeks of working in the fertilizer mill Jurgis couldn’t eat because he had lost his appetite as a result of throwing up in reaction to the fertilizer all over his body.
Even though Jurgis never died from the very bad working conditions he was in Old Antanas did. Antanas felt that even though he was old, he didn’t have to stay home and not do any work to support the family. So, he forced himself to walk to and from work. As time went on he got sick and developed a cough. But Antanas didn’t give up fighting and his cough got worse and worse. Not only was Old Antanas’ cough making him weak, but the factory that Antanas worked in was literally eating at him. Two or three inches of salt peter dissolved in water covered the entire area in which he works. And like an acid the salt peter ate through his boots and gave him horrible sores on his feet until he could get to and from work anymore. So Antanas eventually had to stay home and lie coughing in bed all day. This continued until he died one night after coughing up a lot of blood.
Many of the jobs in the city of
Chicago had a statistical limit as to how many years a person could last in a certain job.
There were the beef-luggers, who carried two-hundred-pound quarters in to the refrigerator-cars; a fearful kind of work that began at four o’clock in the morning, and that wore out the most powerful men in a few years. There were those who worked in the chilling rooms, and whose special disease was rheumatism; the time limit that a man could work in the chilling rooms was said to be five years. (Sinclair, 98)
