Upton Sinclair's dramatic and deeply moving story exposed the brutal conditions in the Chicago stockyards at the turn of the nineteenth century and brought into sharp moral focus the appalling odds against which immigrants and other working people struggled for their share of the American dream. Denounced by the conservative press as an un-American libel on the meatpacking industry, this book was championed by more progressive thinkers, including...

Frank Custer is an African-American migrant worker who struggles to help build an interracial union in the Chicago Stockyards. When management efforts to divide the workforce put strain on the racial tensions, the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 is the result.