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A couple quick points in response.
First, I mentioned that the immigrant experience was somewhat different than presented in The Jungle. The town of Gary is a good example. Once called the "magic city," it was a wonder in its time -- built on the sand dunes of Lake Michigan by the newly formed U.S. Steel Company, its workers had state of the art schools and housing by 1900 standards. Some of those workers came from the Silesian region of Poland, then one of the poorest parts of the world. Today, a bit of the idealistic architecture from that era survives in the form of beach and bath buildings in Marquette Park, on the lakeshore. And, some books, including a large tome on the immigrant experience in Indiana (published by the state historical society) and the Images of America series touch on this era. Again, much different than the urban nightmare presented in the Jungle novel.
I also mentioned it is difficult to imagine those past times, and you objected. I was thinking principally of rural agriculture. In the north, the ag methods of just 50 years ago have vanished, and in the south, of course, the mechanized cotton picker did much to end the era of large rural populations comprised of agricultural workers. The world of Treemonisha, found in Joplin's music, is indeed hard to picture, at least for me.
