He was born Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr., on September 20, 1878, in Baltimore, into a relatively poor family, although his mother's family had money. Because his father's financial failures mixed with his mother's affluent family, Sinclair was able to experience two diverse lifestyles. As his father continued to face hardships, he succumbed to the temptation of liquor. Sinclair's distaste for alcohol is apparent in many of his works, including The Jungle.
When Sinclair was 10, he moved to New York City. An advanced student and gifted writer, at 14 he entered the College of the City of New York (though called a college, it was closer to a high school) and supported himself by writing routine and often dull novels (called hack or pulp fiction) for popular magazines. Under various pseudonyms he wrote stories for boys' magazines, too. Sinclair saw himself, at this time, as a poet, embracing Jesus, Hamlet, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
While in New York, Sinclair developed his passion for moral and social justice through his relationship with Reverend W.W. Moir, an Episcopalian minister who was a strong influence during Sinclair's adolescent years. Sinclair admired Moir's abandonment of familial wealth for the clergy, and Moir served as a father figure for Sinclair. The relationship, mixed with Sinclair's study of what he considered conflicting messages in official church teachings, resulted in Sinclair's lifelong following of the moral teachings of Jesus while having little use for organized religion. He earned his B.A. from City College of New York in 1897 and subsequently entered a graduate program at Columbia University.
