The Jungle Socialism During the late 1800s and early 1900s hundreds of thousands of European immigrants emigrated to the United States of America. They had aspirations of success, prosperity, and their own conception of the American dream. Most immigrants believed that their lives would completely change for the better and that the new world would bring nothing but happiness. Advertisements that appeared in Europe offered a bright future and economic stability to these naive and hopeful people. Jobs with excellent wages and working conditions, maximum security and other benefits seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime for these struggling foreigners. Little did these people know that what they would face would be the complete antithesis of what they dreamed of. The huge flow of European immigrants has collided with a lack of jobs. Those who were lucky enough to find work ended up in factories, steel mills or the meatpacking industry. Jurgis Rudkus was one of these disappointed immigrants. A street cleaner in a slaughterhouse, he experienced the horrendous conditions the workers found themselves in. On top of these nightmarish working conditions, they worked for nominal wages, inflexible and long hours, in an atmosphere where worker safety had no persuasion. At first there was no one these immigrants could turn to, so many suffered immensely. Jurgis would later learn of the existence of workers' unions and other workforce support groups, but the early years of his Americanized life were filled with severed fingers, unemployment, and, overall, a depressing and painful "new beginning." . Sinclair, showed in dramatic style the hardships and obstacles that Jurgis and his fellow workers had to endure. He made the workers seem so helpless and the conditions so gruesome, that the reader almost wants a way out for Jurgis. Sinclair's The Jungle is a "subliminal" form of propaganda for socialism. At a time in our nation's history when the rich were very rich and the poor were penniless, Sinclair's portrayal of socialism to the working man is very appealing to an unemployed, hungry, destitute man. Sinclair's vision of socialism was not as flawless and beneficial as it seemed.