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'''Upton Sinclair''' was an American writer, whose best known book nowadays is ''The Jungle'' (1908).  ''The Jungle'' was a "[[muckraking]]" book about the meat packing industry. While it is the book he is remembered for today, he wrote several others that were best-sellers of their time, such as the Lanny Budd series (1940-1953) beginning with ''World's End'', that were set during the [[World War I]] and [[World War II]] eras and incorporated then-current events into the novels. In total he wrote over 90 books.  Most of those books are today quite obscure.

'''Upton Sinclair''' was an American [[Socialist]] writer and politician, best known for ''The Jungle'' (1908), a "muckraking" book about the meat packing industry. While it is the book he is remembered for today, he wrote several others that were best-sellers of their time. In total he wrote over 90 books, most quite obscure today.

[[File:EPIC1934.jpg|thumb|300px|Socialist Upton Sinclair won the Democratic primary for governor in 1934, but voters saw through his fantasies and elected the conservative Republican]]

One of his most successful was ''Boston'', a novel based upon the [[Sacco and Vanzetti|Sacco-Vanzetti]] case, in which he presented the defendants as innocent. But in 2005, a 1929 letter from Sinclair surfaced, in which he confessed that Fred Moore, lawyer for the two men, “told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them."<ref>"[http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/01/28/uptonsinclair-boston.html Novelist's Book about Murder Trial Called into Question],"

Canadian Broadcasting Company, January 28, 2006; cf. Doug Linder (2001), [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/SaccoV/s&vaccount.html The Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti], Famous Trials (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law)</ref> As he revealed in another letter, from 1927, Sinclair feared for his life if he told the truth: "My wife is absolutely certain that if I tell what I believe, I will be called a traitor to the movement and may not live to finish the book."<ref>Jack Cashill, [http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=25966 Mythologizing Murder], FrontPageMagazine.com, April 10, 2007</ref> In the end, he decided that a lie would sell better than the truth: "It is much better copy as a naive defense of Sacco and Vanzetti because this is what all my foreign readers expect, and they are 90% of my public."<ref>Jonah Goldberg, [http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200601061019.asp The Clay Feet of Liberal Saints], ''National Review'', January 06, 2006</ref>

Upton Sinclair's political views were [[leftist]] and [[socialist]]. He ran for public office several times, running for the U.S. Congress on the [[Socialist Party of America|Socialist Party]] ticket in 1906 and 1920, the [[United States Senate]] on the Socialist Party ticket in 1922, and for governor of [[California]] on the [[Democratic Party]] ticket in 1934. The last of those runs was the only one in which he ever came close to winning public office.  His 1934 run as a Democrat frightened a lot of people, who saw his EPIC (End Poverty In California) plan as an elaborate back-door scheme to bring [[communism]] to California, and he lost the election. Remarking on his electoral attempts in 1951, he said, "The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it...", adding that he had only won 60,000 votes running as a Socialist on an open platform of socialism, but 879,000 votes running as a Democrat on an "End Poverty In California" platform.

[[File:EPIC1934.jpg|thumb|300px|Socialist Upton Sinclair won the Democratic primary for governor in 1934, but voters saw through his fantasies and elected the conservative Republican]] Upton Sinclair's political views were [[leftist]] and [[socialist]]. He ran for public office several times, running on the [[Socialist Party of America|Socialist Party]] ticket in 1906 and 1920 for the U.S. Congress, and in 1922 for the [[United States Senate]]. In 1934, he ran on the [[Democratic Party]] ticket for governor of [[California]]. His 1934 run as a Democrat frightened a lot of people, who saw his EPIC (End Poverty In California) plan as an elaborate back-door scheme to bring [[communism]] to California, and he was overwhelmingly defeated.<ref>Upton Sinclair, [http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/sinclair.html End Poverty in California The EPIC Movement], ''The Literary Digest'', October 13, 1934</ref> Remarking on his electoral attempts in 1951, he said, "The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it...", adding that he had only won 60,000 votes running as a Socialist on an open platform of socialism, but 879,000 votes running as a Democrat on an "End Poverty In California" platform.

Upton Sinclair was a co-founder, along with fellow Socialist Party members [[Jack London]] and [[Norman Thomas]], of the [[League for Industrial Democracy]] in 1905.  This is the group whose student wing (the Student League for Industrial Democracy) would go on to change their name to [[Students for a Democratic Society]] in 1960 and become the genesis of the [[New Left]] campus unrest of the 1960s.

Upton Sinclair was a co-founder, along with fellow Socialist Party members [[Jack London]] and [[Norman Thomas]], of the [[League for Industrial Democracy]] in 1905.  This is the group whose student wing (the Student League for Industrial Democracy) would go on to change their name to [[Students for a Democratic Society]] in 1960 and become the genesis of the [[New Left]] campus unrest of the 1960s.

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