Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr., was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on 20 September 1878. Although his was a prominent Southern family, they were in financial trouble after the Civil War. His father was a travelling salesman, and was frequently drunk. Besides a life-long opposition to alcohol, Sinclair obtained from his early years an appreciation for the contrasts between rich and poor as he alternated between his immediate family’s poverty and his relatives’ wealth. Sinclair’s early experience with class differences would inform his later support for socialism.
When Sinclair was ten, he moved with his family to New York City. At 15 years old, he began to write pulp fiction in order to pay for his studies at the City College of New York. After CCNY, he studied at Columbia University,
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Citation: Zumoff, Jacob. "Upton Sinclair". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 July 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4087, accessed 24 November 2024.]
