There was a scandal in the meat packing industry in 1906, revealed in Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle. Sinclair provided a fictionalised account based on his time undercover in meatpacking plants. His intention was to bring attention to the horrid conditions for meat packing workers, but the public was instead outraged at the sanitation practices it revealed as well as the revelation that they were basically eating adulterated offal. This led to the meat inspection act and pure food and drugs act in unusually short order.

Aside from Sinclair's work there was a snowball effect from state legislature's and state courts at the conclusion of the 19th century which would lead to the progressive era in the United States as a whole.