By: Allison Moniz

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• By Allison Moniz Danielle Hernandez

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Born in Hatch Hollow, Pennsylvania on November
5, 1857 to Esther McCullough and Franklin
Tarbell Passed away in Bridgeport, Connecticut
on January 6, 1944 of pneumonia.
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Two of Idas brothers knew Abraham Lincoln, and
her father was an independent oil producer in
western Pennylvania whose business failed. He
claimed that it was due to the practices of John
D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company. These
connections would prove influential later in her
career.
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• Idas major in college was biology.
• In 1880 she received her bachelors degree and
  was the only woman of her graduating class.
• Eventually in 1883 she received her masters.
• She earned both degrees at Allegheny College.

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Ida became an investigative journalist, or as
Roosevelt liked to call it, a muckraker.
Initially he thought that Ida and other
investigative journalists were only looking for
trouble and constantly pointing out the bad
things of this nation rather than the good. But
as time passed he eventually realized that what
Ida and others were actually doing was telling
the ugly truth, because they strongly believed in
getting those injustices reformed.
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Tarbells objective when writing this book was to
inform people of the many injustices being done
in the Standard Oil Company. It especially
targeted John D. Rockefeller.
The History of The Standard Oil Company was
issued in McClures Magazine in small portions
each month.
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An excerpt from The History of the Standard Oil
Company - Mr. Hanna had been refining since
July, 1869. Some time in February, 1872, the
Standard Oil Company asked for an interview
with him and his associates. They wanted to buy
his works, they said. But we dont want to
sell, objected Mr. Hanna. You can never make
any more money, in my judgment, said Mr.
Rockefeller. You cant compete with the
Standard. We have all the large refineries now.
If you refuse to sell, it will end in your being
crushed.
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Although there were oppositions to the Standard
Oil Company and Rockefeller before Tarbells
publications, her writings fueled the peoples
fury with him and his company. Tarbells works
contributed to and promoted the breakup of the
Standard Oil Company in 1911.
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Quotes From Ida
Imagination is the only key to the future.
Without it none exists - with it all things are
possible.
(In regards to John D. Rockefeller) And he calls
his great organization a benefaction, and points
to his church-going and charities as proof of his
righteousness. This is supreme wrong-doing
cloaked by religion. There is but one name for it
-- hypocrisy.
Rockefeller and his associates did not build
the Standard Oil Co. in the board rooms of Wall
Street banks. They fought their way to control by
rebate and drawback, bribe and blackmail,
espionage and price cutting, by ruthless ...
efficiency of organization.
There is no more effective medicine to apply to
feverish public sentiment than figures.
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Synopsis

• Tarbell, along with Lincoln Steffens, Ray
  Stannard Baker, and John Sanborn Phillips, left
  McClures Magazine and bought American Magazine.
• She was the only woman of her graduating class
  of 1880 at Allegheny College.
• She moved to Ohio after graduation to teach
  science, but resigned after only two years.
• At the age of 34, Tarbell moved to Paris to
  write her biography, where she also worked at a
  magazine company. It was there that Samuel
  Sidney McClure, editor of McClures Magazine,
  offered her an editors position at his company.
  (1894)
• In 1915, she also wrote for Colliers Weekly.
• In 1999, The History of The Standard Oil
  Company was listed as number five among the top
  100 works of 20th-century American journalism.
• Throughout her life, Tarbell opposed the
  suffrage movement, believing that womens
  traditional roles had been belittled by womens
  right advocates and that womens contributions
  belonged in the private sphere. (www.pbs.org)

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Work Cited
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell

• http//ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/search.html

http//tarbell.allegheny.edu/
http//www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/89spring/im
ages/page122z.jpg
http//enwikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell
http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rockefellers/peopleev
ents/p-tarbell.html
http//womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/ida_tar
bell.htm