The origins of Sinclair's unique career lie in the circumstances of his childhood and adolescence: genteel cultural influences, poverty, idealism, ambition. He grew up in Baltimore and New York City as the only son of a ne'er-do-well salesman from a respected Virginia family. His mother was the daughter of a wealthy Baltimore family that presented a decided contrast to the usually shabby existence provided by his father. At the age of eighteen, while finishing up at the City College of New York, Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr., began his writing career as the pseudonymous author of boys' adventure stories for Street and Smith, the leading American publisher of pulp fiction and dime novels. In embarking upon a career as a hack writer, Sinclair sought, with considerable success, to achieve economic independence from his alcoholic father. In four years he produced hundreds of stories whose techniques, especially deus ex machina plots and two-dimensional characterizations, seem to have periodically insinuated themselves into his later works. During the latter three years of this unusual apprenticeship, following his graduation from CCNY, he also took courses, but no degree, from Columbia University.
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