Ida M. Tarbell

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Ida M. Tarbell, 1904
Ida M. Tarbell, 1904

Ida Minerva Tarbell (November 5, 1857–January 6, 1944) was a teacher, an author and journalist. She was known as one of the leading "muckrakers" of her day, work known in modern times as "investigative journalism." She wrote many notable magazine series and biographies. She is best-known for her 1904 book The History of the Standard Oil Company, which was listed number five among the top 100 works of twentieth-century American journalism by the New York Times in 1999.

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[edit] Youth, education

Ida Tarbell was born in Erie County, Pennsylvania. She grew up in the western portion of the state where new oil fields were developed in the 1860s. She was the daughter of Frank Tarbell, who built wooden oil storage tanks and later became an oil producer and refiner in Venango County. Her father's business, and those of many other small businessmen was adversely affected by the South Improvement Company scheme around 1872 between the railroads and larger oil interests. Later, she would vividly recall this situation in her work, as she accused the leaders of the Standard Oil Company of using unfair tactics to put her father and many small oil companies out of business.

Ida graduated at the head of her high school class in Titusville, Pennsylvania. She majored in biology and graduated from Allegheny College, where she was the only woman in the class of 1880.

After graduating from college, Ida began her career as a science teacher at Ohio Poland Union Seminary. However, she found her life's work in writing, and changed her vocation after two years, and returned to Pennsylvania, where she began writing for Chataquan, a teaching supplement for home study courses. By 1886, she had become the managing editor.

In 1891, at the age of 34, she moved to Paris to do post-graduate work and write a biography of Madame Roland, the leader of an influential salon during the French Revolution. She went to work for McClure's Magazine and wrote a popular series on Napoleon Bonaparte. Her series on Abraham Lincoln doubled the magazine's circulation, and was published in a book. These established her reputation nationally as a leading writer.

Ida Tarbell, between 1910 and 1930.
Ida Tarbell, between 1910 and 1930.

[edit] John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil

Although the work is now called "investigative journalism", "muckrakers" was the name that President Theodore Roosevelt gave journalists of the early part of the 20th century who exposed abuses in American business and government. Some of the other most famous of the early muckrakers were Lincoln Steffens, and Ray Stannard Baker who also worked at McClure's. Ida Tarbell joined their ranks on her next project.

Beginning in 1902, she began a series of interviews with Henry Huttleston Rogers, a key man in the Standard Oil Trust, to whom she had been introduced by their mutual friend, Mark Twain. The normally cautious and wily Rogers was apparently more forthcoming and candid with her than usual. She spent many additional hours reviewing public documents, gaining an understanding of the interaction of the a myriad of companies and the secret rate-making agreements between the railroads and the big oil companies. She then was able to translate all of that and the information from Rogers into a series of articles which the public could easily read and comprehend.

Her resulting muckraking work became a famous exposé of the nefarious business practices of John D. Rockefeller's web of companies which eventually led to the formation of the Standard Oil Trust. Originally published in a series of article in McClure's Magazine, it established her as a leading pioneer of investigative journalism. Her series, later published in her 1904 book, The History of the Standard Oil Company, helped draw widespread public attention to monopolistic business practices, and potential violations of U.S. anti-trust laws.

Along with reforms urged by President Roosevelt, the work of the muckrakers may have added pressure on federal authorities which led to the U.S. Supreme Court-ordered breakup of the Standard Oil Trust companies in 1911. The U.S. Congress also passed legislation that established a Department of Commerce and a Bureau of Corporations.

In 1906, Tarbell, Baker, Steffens, and editor John Sanborn Phillips left McClure's and bought American Magazine, where they departed somewhat from the muckraking style and adopted a more optimistic approach.

[edit] Later career

Tarbell and most of the rest of the staff left American Magazine in 1915. After that time, although she also contributed to Collier's Weekly, a large part of Tarbell's schedule began to include the lecture circuit. She became interested in the peace effort, serving on many committees. She continued to write and to teach biography. She published a 1926 interview with Benito Mussolini.

She also wrote several books on the role of women including The Business of Being a Woman (1912) and The Ways of Women (1915). Her last published work was her autobiography, All in the Day's Work (1939).

[edit] Death, legacy

Ida Tarbell died of pneumonia on her farm in Connecticut at the age of 86 in 1944.

In 1999, her 1904 book The History of the Standard Oil Company was listed number five among the top 100 works of twentieth-century American journalism by the New York Times.

In 2000, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.

On September 14, 2002, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring Tarbell as part of a series of four stamps honoring women journalists.

"Imagination is the only key to the future. Without it none exists - with it all things are possible"
Ida M. Tarbell

[edit] Further reading

  • The History of the Standard Oil Company, 2 vols., Gloucester, Mass: Peter Smith, 1963 {1904}.
  • All in The Days Work: An Autobiography, New York: Macmillan, 1939.
  • Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Ron Chernow, London: Warner Books, 1998.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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