SORRY IF THIS IS KINDA LONG, but...people were devastated by how people in the work place where being mistreated and denied certain rights. they also found out that the food that was being made in certain place were processed in a unsanitary way( wont go into the nasty details) soon after the book was published even Theodore Roosevelt, The Big Man himself made laws to fight against the shameful acts that industries didn't even try to find solutions too