Sinclair, Upton

Upton Sinclair was an American author born as Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr. in Baltimore, Maryland. His father, who came from a family of southern aristocrats that had fallen on bad times after the Civil War, was a travelling liquor salesman (he was mostly drunk), and his mother was of wealthy Baltimore stock, but they were both poor. The family moved to New York when Sinclair was about ten years old. He studied at New York City College and Columbia University, and financed his studies by, from the age of fifteen, publishing stories in various pulp magazines. In 1920, he joined the Socialist Party and he later ran several times for Congress and for the Senate on a Socialist ticket. He later moved to California where he ran in the gubernatorial election as a Democrat in 1934. Sinclair lived in Pasadena for forty years and moved to Buckeye, Arizona, in 1953.