Ida Tarbell's masterly work of investigative journalism leaves the reader longing for a principled, hard-working, thorough and hard-working reporter such as Ida Tarbell and her fellow idealists at McClure's Magazine at the turn of the 20th Century. She and her colleagues came to President Roosevelt's attention, at first with doubt, but later with appreciation. His actions helped to bring about remarkable and desperately needed changes. This book should be required reading in any journalism course today. "Muckrakers" was the name that Theodore Roosevelt gave journalists of the early part of the 20th century who exposed abuses in American business and government. Ida Tarbell, one of the original muckrakers, was able to help shut down the Standard Oil Company monopoly that had hampered her father's efforts in the oil industry in Pennsylvania. Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller, irked by her stinging éxpose, dubbed her "Miss Tarbarrel." The History of the Standard Oil Company is listed number five among the top 100 works of twentieth-century American journalism by the New York Times in 1999. This muckraking classic, which eventually led to effective regulation of the Standard Oil Company, was the inaugural work for crusading journalists whose mission was to expose corruption in politics and the abuses of big business during the early twentieth century. The history combined descriptions of John D. Rockefeller's business practices with his personal characteristics, creating an image of a cunning and ruthless person--a picture that not even decades of Rockefeller philanthropy were able to dispel.
About the Author: Ida M. Tarbell (1857-1944) was an American teacher, author and journalist. She was known as one of the leading "muckrakers" of the progressive era, 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 as No. 5 in a 1999 list by the New York Times of the top 100 works of 20th-century American journalism. She began her work on The Standard after her editors at McClure's Magazine called for a story on one of the trusts. Tarbell began her interviews with Henry H. Rogers, who had begun his career during the American Civil War in western Pennsylvania oil regions. In 1902 she conducted detailed interviews with the Standard Oil magnate. Rogers, wily and normally guarded in matters related to business and finance, may have been under the impression her work was to be complimentary. He was apparently unusually forthcoming. However, Tarbell's interviews with Rogers formed the basis for her negative exposé of the business practices of industrialist John D. Rockefeller and the massive Standard Oil organization. Her work, which became known at the time as muckraking (now called investigative journalism), first ran as a series of articles in McClure's Magazine. The series was later published as a book, The History of the Standard Oil Company in 1904, which spotlighted Rockefeller's practices and mobilized the public. Readers nationwide awaited each chapter of the story, serialized in 19 installments by McClure's between 1902 and 1904." Tarbell's look into the oil industry reinvented investigative reporting. She was meticulous in detailing Rockefeller's early interest in oil and how the industry began. Tarbell developed investigative reporting tactics, digging into public documents across the country. Separately, these documents provided individual instances of Standard Oil's strong-arm tactics against rivals, railroad companies and others that got in its way. Tarbell's reporting and writing of Standard Oil stood above everything else for two reasons. It was the first corporate coverage of its kind, and it attacked the business operations of Rockefeller, the best-known CEO in the country at the time. That a prominent person in American society could lead a company that used such unsavory operating tactics was eye-opening.