Upton Beall Sin­clair, Jr., was born in Bal­ti­more on Sep­tem­ber 20, 1878. Per­haps best known for The Jun­gle, the Pulitzer-winning author pro­duced more than 90 books.

Sinclair’s father was an alco­holic liquor sales­man, and the fam­ily lived in poverty in a row­house at 417 N. Charles Street that has since been demol­ished. His mother, Priscilla Harden, grew up in a wealthy fam­ily. Sinclair’s mater­nal grand­par­ents lived about 1.5 mile away at 2010 Mary­land Avenue. In 1888, when Sin­clair was about 10 years old, the fam­ily moved to The Bronx.

Accord­ing to the Bal­ti­more Lit­er­ary Her­itage Project, it dur­ing Sinclair’s early years in Bal­ti­more that he devel­oped his love for lit­er­a­ture and a vora­cious appetite for books. As a 10-year-old, Sin­clair read the col­lected works of Shake­speare in two weeks. The stark con­trasts of mov­ing between poverty and wealth impressed the young Sin­clair, ulti­mately lead­ing him to socialism.

Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jun­gle, exposed shock­ing con­di­tions in the meat­pack­ing indus­try and is par­tially respon­si­ble for pas­sage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, which founded the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion, and the Meat Inspec­tion Act.

links

Bal­ti­more Lit­er­ary Her­itage Project
Wikipedia: Upton Sin­clair

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