Upton Sinclair, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and reformer, is born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 20, 1878.

The 1906 bestseller was one of the most influential books in American history—but not in the way its author intended.

BY: CHRISTOPHER KLEIN

Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906, the novel became an instant sensation, exposing the horrifying conditions in America’s meat-processing industry. With its stomach-turning depictions of the stockyards and slaughterhouses, the book lit a new fire under the pure food movement and inspired swift passage of landmark food safety laws.

Two years earlier, in the fall of 1904, Sinclair had boarded a train to Chicago in search of material for his Great American Novel. For seven weeks, the 26-year-old writer and devout socialist investigated the dangerous and oppressive working conditions endured by what he called “the wage slaves of the Beef Trust.” Donning grimy clothes and carrying a dinner pail to sneak into Chicago’s “Packingtown,” a dense complex of stockyards, feed lots, slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants, Sinclair was horrified by what he saw.

Titled The Jungle as a metaphor for capitalism, Sinclair’s novel originally appeared in monthly installments between February and November 1905 in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason. It tells the story of an idealistic Lithuanian immigrant working for a fictional meat-processing company who loses his family, job, home and health in a succession of calamities before finding hope in socialism.

The Jungle had a limited audience at first, but it became a bestselling sensation when Doubleday, Page & Company published a revised version in February 1906. It sold more than 150,000 copies in its first year.

Much as Uncle Tom’s Cabin had influenced the national conversation about slavery, Sinclair hoped his epic would spark outrage about “wage slavery” and promote socialism as a solution. The Jungle did shock the American public and prompt legislative change—but not in the way he wanted.

If America is truly defined by universal principles — liberty, equality, autonomy — then restricting rights for Women and Black Americans undermines the very creed being invoked.

I am asking and saying:

If America is truly creedal, then the creed must apply equally — and current legal and political actions often undermine that.

Many scholars argue that the “creedal” narrative can be used to mask unequal treatment by pretending the playing field is already level.

Me and AI

Posted: 12 May 2016 09:22 AM PDT Whether it’s sharing photos, searching the web or translating languages, billions of requests are sent to “the cloud” every day. But few people think about how all this information flows through physical locations, called data centers. Because these buildings typically aren’t much to look at, people usually don’t—and rarely learn about the incredible structures and people inside who make so much of modern life possible. To begin to change that, we created the Data Center Mural Project: a partnership with artists to bring a bit of the magic from the inside of our data centers to the outside. We’re starting with two data center locations. In Mayes County, Oklahoma, digital artist Jenny Odell’s mural is made up of Google Maps satellite imagery. Her mural artwork focuses on types of infrastructure that enable the flow of goods, power and information—not unlike data centers themselves. Belgium local street artist Oli-B took inspiration from “the cloud” for his colorful mural on the outside of our St. Ghislain data center. He’s painted clouds that include elements specific to the region, the data center and the people who run it—including the sheep that roam the data center grounds and a balloon from the annual festival L’Ascension à Saint-Ghislain. Soon, we’ll add murals at two more data centers, and eventually we hope to bring the project to more locations around the world. Check out photos, videos and more at g.co/datacentermurals. Posted by Joe Kava, VP Google Data Centers https://beaseedforchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/c92ba-launch-thumbnail2b252812529.jpg Joe Kava VP Google Data Centers

How embarrassing to know that this 2016 article was actually a warning! Now, in this year of 2026, ai, and data centers are out of control, including an obvious disregard for our privacy, but the words in our Constitution

Nativegrl77

1895 – The Berliner Gramophone Company was founded in Philadelphia, PA.

1904 – “Little Johnny Jones” opened in Hartford, CT.

1915 – During World War I, the Battle of Loos concluded.

1918 – U.S. Corporal Alvin C. York almost single-handedly killed 25 German soldiers and captured 132 in the Argonne Forest in France. York had originally tried to avoid being drafted as a conscientious objector. After this event his was promoted to sergeant and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

1919 – The first transcontinental air race in the U.S. began.

1945 – U.S. President Truman announced that only Britain and Canada would be given the secret to the atomic bomb.

1950 – U.N. forces crossed into North Korea from South Korea.

1952 – “The Complete Book of Etiquette” was published for the first time.

1956 – Donald James Larsen (New York Yankees) pitched the first perfect game in the history of the World Series.

1957 – The Brooklyn Baseball Club announced that it had accepted a deal to move the Dodgers to Los Angeles.

1966 – The U.S. Government declared that LSD was dangerous and an illegal substance.

1970 – Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature.

1979 – “Sugar Babies” opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on Broadway.

1981 – U.S. President Reagan greeted former Presidents Carter, Ford and Nixon to the White House. The group was preparing to leave for Egypt to attend the funeral of Anwar Sadat.

1982 – In Poland, all labor organizations, including Solidarity, were banned.

1991 – A slave burial site was found by construction workers in lower Manhattan. The “Negro Burial Ground” had been closed in 1790. Over a dozen skeletons were found.

1993 – The U.S. government issued a report absolving the FBI of any wrongdoing in its final assault in Waco, TX, on the Branch Davidian compound. The fire that ended the siege killed as many as 85 people.

1996 – Pope John Paul II underwent a successful operation to remove his inflamed appendix.

1998 – Taliban forces attacked Iranian border posts. Iran said that three border posts were destroyed before the Taliban forces were forced to retreat. The Taliban of Afghanistan denied the event occurred.

1998 – Canada and Netherlands were voted into the U.N. Security Council.

2001 – Tom Ridge, former Governor of Pennsylvania, was sworn in as director of the new U.S. department of Homeland Security.

2001 – Two Russian cosmonauts made the first spacewalk to be conducted outside of the international space station without a shuttle present.

2002 – A federal judge approved U.S. President George W. Bush’s request to reopen West Coast ports, to end a caustic 10-day labor lockout. The lockout was costing the U.S. economy an estimated $1 billion to $2 billion a day.

2003 – China announced that it would have a human crew orbit the Earth briefly on October 15.

2003 – Vietnam and the United States reached a tentative agreement that would allow the first commercial flights between the two countries since the end of the Vietnam War.

2003 – It was announced that Vivendi Universal and General Electric Co. had reached an agreement to merge. The name for the combined company was NBC Universal.

2003 – Siegfried Fischbacher and his manager announced that the “Siegfried and Roy” show at the Mirage was canceled permanently. It was also said that if Roy Horn survived, after a tiger attack on October 3, the duo would continue to work together.

2004 – The first-ever direct presidential elections were held in Afghanistan.