Ida M. Tarbell

           Ida M. Tarbell was born on September 5, 1857 and spent her childhood in the oil fields of Pennsylvania. Ida M. Tarbell would one day become America’s first great woman journalist. Before Ida M. Tarbell became a famous investigative journalist for the story, “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” she wanted to be a biologist. Ida M. Tarbell was the only girl to graduate from Allegheny College in 1880. After college, she became an editorial assistant for the Chautauquan magazine. After working at Chautauquan, she decided to go back to school, this time in Paris, and support herself through writing. Tarbell’s specialty was to write about her own opinions, rather than relying on other’s opinions. She also was able to bring factual accuracy and a strong ability to sift through past evidence to her writing. She sent some of these writings to the McClure Syndicate, where S.S McClure caught an interest in Ida. He asked her to write articles for his new magazine.

Tarbell began writing biographies about prominent people, like Napoleon Bonaparte and Abraham Lincoln. After Tarbell wrote these biographies, S.S McClure wanted to explain the growth in monopolies and trusts and thought Ida’s story would be perfect to tell and he wanted her to look into the history of the Standard Oil Company. Tarbell’s father and other oil workers’ lives were ruined when the Standard Oil Company and railroads conspired with one another to smaller competitors out of business. Even though many people told her not to, Ida did write the exposé entitled, “History of the Standard Oil Company.” She started by sifting through court cases and documents against the Standard Oil Company and interviewed many officials from the Standard Oil Company. In the article she accused Rockefeller, Standard Oil Company president, of using rebates and other tactics against the common good to become wealthy. Her investigative exposé was so influential that it influenced the 1911 Supreme Court decision to break up the Standard Oil trust.

This exposé showed that Tarbell was fearless and was a huge success of the muckracking era. However, Ida Tarbell didn’t want to be known as a muckracker. Many people accused Tarbell of being vengeful because her father’s company was dissolved or as someone who was just trying to find what was wrong in America. After this experience, Tarbell and other writers started their own magazine that wasn’t designed around muckracking. Ida Tarbell ended her career by writing about modern influential men from her farmhouse in Connecticut. She died on January 6, 1944. 

Works Cited

"Biography: Ida Tarbell." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.

Lowrie, Arthur L. "IDA TARBELL." Ida Tarbell Life & Works. Pelletier Library of Allegheny

College, 1997. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.

Ritchie, Donald A. "Ida M. Tarbell A Journalist Not an Advocate." American Journalists:

Getting the Story. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. 172-76. Print.