1) What qualities did Sinclair believe a person must have to succeed in Packingtown?
Sinclair believed that the qualities of people needed to be in order. He believed that the ability to work on your own and mind your own business was a necessity. If you were easily distracted, then you were not Packingtown material.
2)According to the passage, what is the plant owner's main goal?
The main goal of the plant owner was to make as much money as possible. The matter wasn't how the money was made, or who it hurt. All that mattered was the amount of money made..
3) What does Sinclair mean when he says, "...there was no place in it where a man counted for anything against a dollar....?"
What Sinclair meant by this quotation, was that basically the money was more important than the workers. As long as there was money being made, the quality of workers lives wasn't an issue.
According to Upton Sinclair, the only way to rise up the ranks in the meat packing industry was by telling lies and spying on your fellow coworkers. If you ever met a man rising up in Packingtown, he was a knave.
the main goal of the meat packing owners was to make as much money as humanly possible. One tactic they used to do this was to use calve meat. Which was not up to standards when it came to food. As well as using low quality meat, if you were injured in the process, you would be fired because you no longer can provide help.

Imperialism and industry

The Industrial growth  that happened in the United States continued through the civil war. Machines replaced hand labour when it came to manufacturing,  increasing production exponentially. The new railroads helped the transport of goods hugely. Inventors were coming up with ideas that everyone had to have. Bankers and investors supplied huge amounts of money that business leaders had to expand their operations. The new business activity moved to cities. Due to this, people moved to cities in record numbers. There was a sharp contrast of the rich and the poor which stirred up widespread discontent. This caused more unions to form. The industrial growth centered in the North. The war-torn south was lagging behind the rest of the country. In the West, frontier life was ending. The United States eventually built up its military strength and became a world power.
             The value of American goods increased almost a ten fold between 1870 and 1916. Many interrelated developments and contributed to this growth. The use of machines took over the manufacturing field and was at much more efficient.
            Life for a worker in the Industrial Revolution was brutal. If one was lucky enough, they would get about a thirty minute break for breakfast, and a thirty minute break for lunch, and they would work usually from five in the morning till eight at night.

John Davison Rockefeller

John Davison Rockefeller ( July 8th 1839- May 23rd 1927) was an American Industrialist and Philanthropist. John was the founder of a Standard Oil company. After the first year of business closed, the business's gross was $450,000. In 1870, Rockefeller founded the first great U.S. business trust and ran it until he retired in 1897. Rockefeller revolutionized the Petroleum Industry and defined the structure of Philanthropy ( Love of humanity). As the drive for gasoline and kerosene increased so did Rockefeller's wealth and he became the richest man in the world and the only American to be worth more than a billion dollars.

Hiring Workers

Many Chinese peasants started arriving on California's shores in 1850. They were pushed by poverty and overpopulation. In early 1865, the Central Pacific had enough work for 4,000 men.  Most of the early workers were Irish immigrants. Some Central Pacific officials believed that the Irish would spend their wages on liquor, and that the Chinese were unreliable. "Wherever we put them, we found them good." Crocker recalled. "And they worked themselves into our favor to such an extent that if we found we were in a hurry for a job of work, it was better to put the Chinese on at once." Toward the end of the line, Crocker was so convinced at the skill of the Irish and Chinese, that he pushed for a new railroad building record. Ten miles of railroad tracks in one day.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-cprr/