Known for Writing
Upton Sinclair Jr. was an American writer who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well known and popular in the first half of the 20th century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943. In 1906, Sinclair acquired particular fame for his classic muckraking novel The Jungle, which exposed labor and sanitary conditions in the U.S. meatpacking industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muck-raking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the “free press” in the United States. Four years after the publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created. Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence".He is also well remembered for the line: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." He used this line in speeches and the book about his campaign for governor as a way to explain why the editors and publishers of the major newspapers in California would not treat seriously his proposals for old age pensions and other progressive reforms. Many of his novels can be read as historical works. Writing during the Progressive Era, Sinclair describes the world of industrialized America from both the working man's and the industrialist's points of view. Novels such as King Coal (1917), The Coal War (published posthumously), Oil! (1927), and The Flivver King (1937) describe the working conditions of the coal, oil, and auto industries at the time. The Flivver King describes the rise of Henry Ford, his "wage reform", and the company's Sociological Department to his decline into antisemitism as publisher of The Dearborn Independent. King Coal confronts John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and his role in the 1913 Ludlow Massacre in the coal fields of Colorado. Sinclair was an outspoken socialist and ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a nominee from the Socialist Party. He was also the Democratic Party candidate for Governor of California during the Great Depression, running under the banner of the End Poverty in California campaign, but was defeated in the 1934 elections.
Born
September 20, 1878
Died
November 25, 1968 (age 90)
Birthplace
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Filmography
13 films


There Will Be Blood
2007 · 2h 38m · US
Ruthless silver miner, turned oil prospector, Daniel Plainview, moves to oil-rich California. Using his son to project a trustworthy, family-man image, Plainview cons local landowners into selling him their valuable properties for a pittance. However, local preacher Eli Sunday suspects Plainview's motives and intentions, starting a slow-burning feud that threatens both their lives.


The Gnome-Mobile
1967 · 1h 25m · US
An eccentric millionaire and his grandchildren are embroiled in the plights of some forest gnomes who are searching for the rest of their tribe. While helping them, the millionaire is suspected of being crazy because he's seeing gnomes! He's committed, and the niece and nephew and the gnomes have to find him and free him.


The Wet Parade
1932 · 1h 57m · US
The evils of alcohol before and during prohibition become evident as we see its effects on the rich Chilcote family and the hard working Tarleton family.


Jimmy Higgings
1928 · SU
Jimmy Higgings is a worker of the plant making weapons for the Tsarist Russia and the German Empire. During World War I, Jimmy speaks at a spontaneous rally against the war. He is arrested. When released, he becomes unemployed. He is happy to hear the news about the revolution; he volunteers into the American expeditionary force thinking that having the weapons he can fight against Germans – the enemies of the Russian revolution. However, finding himself in Russia, Jimmy soon realises that the expeditionary force of American volunteers fights not against the Germans, but against the young Socialist Russia. Without any hesitations, he takes the path of revolutionary struggle, he spreads propaganda among the American soldiers and distributes Bolshevik leaflets. Captured by the American military police, Jimmy Higgings does not betray his friends. He is sentenced to twenty years in a military prison. Jimmy cannot stand it and loses his mind. Lost movie.


The Money Changers
1920 · 1h · US
Lucy Hegan, the proprietor of a settlement house for the poor, is engaged to Hugh Gordon, the head of a large pharmaceutical and chemical firm who, unknown to Lucy, is also the ringleader of a powerful drug and white slave operation in the Chinese quarter.


The Adventurer
1917 · 50m · US
A young girl is trying to live an honest life in a crooked city. Caught up with a crook that might be the son of a millionaire and other crooked people, she must attempt to reform things, or at least one person.


The Jungle
1914 · 55m · US
Lithuanian immigrant, Jurgis Rudkus, gains a job in the Chicago stockyards. Once working at the stockyards he meets and marries Ona. But due to cut backs at the stockyards, loses his job, and they fall into financial hardship. Ona, in order to get money to feed their child, engages in sexual activity with her husband's foreman, Connor. Connor, rapes her. When Rudkus finds out about the affair, he throws Connor into a cattle pen where he is killed. While in prison Ona dies. When Rudkus gets out of prison he becomes an advocate for women via the Socialist Party. Considered a lost film.