Sinclair had intended his account of the meat industry to serve as a critique of industrial capitalism but this, it seems, was lost on readers, who were more worried about the unhygienic conditions their food was being produced in. Sinclair said later of his book, ‘I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.’51 As Joshua Specht curtly puts it, ‘He hoped for socialist revolution but had to settle instead for better food labelling.’
