In honor of Labor Day: Unsanitary Chicago meat-packing conditions documented in Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle included mixing rat droppings, dead rodents, and sawdust into sausages; adding red dye to spoiled meat to make it look fresh. There were even reports of workers falling into rendering tanks, being ground together with animal parts, and sold as lard. Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
