The Jungle: The Pure Food and Drug ActHow a novel about labor rights created food safety laws.

From the show

Rules Written in Blood

Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel, "The Jungle," was meant to be a socialist exposé on the exploitation of immigrant workers. Its shocking descriptions of unsanitary meatpacking conditions, however, horrified the public and President Theodore Roosevelt. The resulting outcry led not to labor reform, but to the creation of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act, accidentally establishing the foundation for the modern FDA. Sometimes, the greatest changes happen by mistake.