Ida tarbell definition us history

Tarbell continued to advocate for social justice and women's rights throughout her life, becoming a key figure in both journalism and the broader Progressive movement. Her work not only highlighted the need for regulation of big corporations but also inspired other journalists to follow suit in exposing corruption. This wave of investigative journalism played a critical role in advancing Progressive reforms aimed at regulating businesses and ensuring fair competition.

Her findings contributed to a growing public demand for antitrust regulations, culminating in stronger federal laws against monopolies. The exposure of such corporate malfeasance set the stage for landmark antitrust actions, including the dissolution of Standard Oil itself in By combining rigorous research with a commitment to exposing social injustices, she established a model for journalistic integrity and advocacy.

Returning to Pennsylvania, Tarbell became acquainted with the editor of a small magazine called The Chautauquan and was offered a job with the journal. She worked there for the remainder of the decade, holding various positions before becoming its managing editor. In , however, she left both the paper and the country, moving overseas to Paris for several years to pursue graduate studies at the Sorbonne and the College de France.

While in Paris, Tarbell continued to work as a journalist, contributing articles to American magazines. But it was when Tarbell decided to mine her own past that her writing would achieve its greatest effect. Like many young journalists of her era, Tarbell had become concerned by the proliferation of monopolies and trusts. In she proposed a series of articles in which she would use her experiences as a child during the South Improvement scandal to illustrate her points and spent the next several years deeply immersed in research on the Standard Oil Company and John D.

The last installment was published in October , at which point it was collected in a book of the same title. She authored numerous longer works as well, including The Business of Being a Woman and The Ways of Women , whose traditional conceptions of gender roles put her at odds with the suffragist movement of the era. The Tarbells' fortune would turn as the Pennsylvania oil rush began in Oil was everywhere in the sand, pits, and puddles.

In , Ida's father moved the family to Rouseville, Pennsylvania. Town founder and neighbor Henry Rouse was drilling for oil when a flame hit natural gas coming from a pump. Tarbell was not allowed to see the bodies, but she snuck into the room where the women awaited burial. Tarbell suffered from nightmares for the rest of her life. After the Rouseville boom was finished in , the family moved to Titusville, Pennsylvania.

Tarbell's father built a family house at Main Street using lumber and fixtures from the defunct Bonta Hotel in Pithole, Pennsylvania. Tarbell's father later became an oil producer and refiner in Venango County. Franklin's business, along with those of many other small businessmen, was adversely affected by the South Improvement Company scheme circa between the railroads and more substantial oil interests where in less than four months during what was later known as "The Cleveland Conquest" or "The Cleveland Massacre," Standard Oil absorbed 22 of its 26 Cleveland competitors.

The members of South Improvement Company received discounts and rebates to offset the rates and put the independents out of business. Franklin Tarbell participated against the South Improvement Company through marches and tipping over Standard Oil railroad tankers. The Tarbells were socially active, entertaining prohibitionists and women's suffragists.

Ida Tarbell was intelligent—but also undisciplined in the classroom. According to reports by Tarbell herself, she paid little attention in class and was often truant until one teacher set her straight: "She told me the plain and ugly truth about myself that day, and as I sat there, looking her straight in the face, too proud to show any feeling, but shamed as I never had been before and never have been since.

From childhood, plants, insects, stones were what I saw when I went abroad, what I brought home to press, to put into bottles, to litter up the house I had never realized that they were subjects for study School suddenly became exciting. Tarbell graduated at the head of her high school class in Titusville and went on to study biology at Allegheny College in , where she was the only woman in her class of Tarbell displayed leadership at Allegheny.

She was a founding member of the local sorority that became the Mu chapter of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority in Tarbell graduated in with an A. She was the second woman to serve as a trustee and held the post for more than three decades. Tarbell left school seeking to contribute to society but unsure of how to do so, she became a teacher. Tarbell taught classes in geology, botany, geometry, and trigonometry as well as languages: Greek, Latin, French, and German.

Tarbell returned to Pennsylvania, where she met Theodore L. Flood, editor of The Chautauquan , a teaching supplement for home study courses at Chautauqua, New York. Tarbell's family was familiar with the movement which encouraged adult education and self-study. Initially, Tarbell worked two weeks at the Meadville, Pennsylvania headquarters and worked two weeks at home.

She became managing editor in , and her duties included proofreading, answering reader questions, providing proper pronunciation of certain words, translating foreign phrases, identifying characters, and defining words. Tarbell began writing brief items for the magazine before working up to longer features as she established her writing style and voice.

That rectitude, while sometimes suggesting inflexibility, drove her instincts for reform, a vital element in her future confrontation with Rockefeller. Tarbell wrote two articles that showcased her conflicting views on the roles of women that would follow her through her life. When an article written by Mary Lowe Dickinson claimed the number of women patent owners to be about —and that women would never become successful inventors—Tarbell's curiosity was sparked and she began her own investigation.

McGill had put together a list of close to 2, women. The article contained history, journalism practices, and advice including a warning that journalism was an open field for women, and yet women should refrain from shedding tears easily and appearing weak. Tarbell balked at being a "hired gal" and decided to strike out on her own after a falling out with Theodore Flood.

Another hinted that her family had reason to seek revenge on him. Leaving the security of The Chautauquan , Tarbell moved to Paris in at age 34 to live and work. The Eiffel Tower had been finished recently in , and Tarbell and her friends enjoyed the art produced by Impressionists including Degas , Monet , Manet , and Van Gogh. Tarbell had an active social life in Paris.

She and her flatmates hosted a language salon where both English and French speakers could come together and practice their non-native language skills. Her landlady, Madame Bonnet, held weekly dinners for the women and her other tenants. These tenants included young men from Egypt, and among them was Prince Said Toussoum, a cousin of the Egyptian ruler.

Tarbell met and had a possible romance with Charles Downer Hazen, a future French historian and professor at Smith College. Tarbell set about making her career as a writer in Paris. She supported herself by writing for several American newspapers including the Pittsburgh Dispatch , the Cincinnati Times-Star , and the Chicago Tribune. Tarbell continued her education in Paris and also learned investigative and research techniques used by French historians.

Tarbell attended lectures at the Sorbonne—including those on the history of the French Revolution, 18th-century literature, and period painting. What Tarbell discovered about Madame Roland changed her own worldview. She began the biography with admiration for Roland but grew disillusioned as she researched and learned more. Tarbell determined that Roland, who followed her husband's lead, was not the independent thinker she had imagined and was complicit in creating an atmosphere where violence led to the Terror and her own execution.

The heaviest blow to my self-confidence so far was my loss of faith in revolution as a divine weapon. Not since I discovered the world not to have been made in six days It was during this time that Tarbell received bad news and then a shock. Franklin Tarbell's business partner had committed suicide, leaving Franklin in debt. Over people died, and she feared her family was among them.

Oil Creek had flooded and inflammable material on the water had ignited and exploded. Tarbell had published articles with the syndicate run by publisher Samuel McClure , and McClure had read a Tarbell article called The Paving of the Streets of Paris by Monsieur Alphand , which described how the French carried out large public works. Impressed, McClure told his partner John S.

Philips, "This girl can write. We need to get her to do some work for our magazine". Convinced that Tarbell was just the kind of writer that he wanted to work for him, he showed up at Tarbell's door in Paris while on a scheduled visit to France in to offer her the editor position at the new magazine. Tarbell described McClure as a " will-of-the-wisp ".

Next, the art director for McClure's , August Jaccaci, made a visit to Tarbell to show her the maiden issue of the magazine. Instead of taking up the editor position at McClure's , Tarbell began writing freelance articles for the magazine. She hoped articles such as "A Paris Press Woman" for the Boston Transcript in would provide a blueprint for women journalists and writers.

She returned to Pasteur again to find out his views on the future. This piece turned into a regular report on "The Edge of the Future. Tarbell returned from Paris in the summer of , [ 55 ] and, after a visit with family in Titusville, moved to New York City. State Department. The series proved to be a training ground for Tarbell's style and methodology for biographies.

Tarbell believed in the Great man theory of biography and that extraordinary individuals could shape their society at least as much as society shaped them. Adams of Johns Hopkins University. Adams believed in the "objective interpretation of primary sources" which would also become Tarbell's method for writing about her subjects. This series of articles would solidify Tarbell's reputation as a writer, opening up new avenues for her.

The Napoleon series proved popular and doubled circulation up to over , on McClure' s magazine—quadrupling the readership by the final seventh Napoleon installment. The articles were folded into a book that would be a best seller and earn Tarbell royalties for the rest of her life—over 70, copies were made of the first edition. When Tarbell first approached John Nicolay, he told her that he and Hay had written "all that was worth telling of Lincoln".

Tarbell's research in the backwoods of Kentucky and Illinois uncovered the true story of Lincoln's childhood and youth. She wrote to and interviewed hundreds of people who knew or had contact with Lincoln. She tracked down leads and then confirmed their sources. She sent hundreds of letters looking for images of Lincoln and found evidence of more than three hundred previously unpublished Lincoln letters and speeches.

Finley was the young college President, and he would go on to contribute to Tarbell's work on Standard Oil and rise to become the editor of The New York Times. By December , the popular series by Tarbell once again helped boost McClure's circulation to over , [ 69 ] [ 70 ] which climbed to over ,, by , [ 69 ] [ 71 ] making it higher than its rivals.

This occurred even as the editors at Century's Magazine sneered, "They got a girl to write the Life of Lincoln. It was at this time that Tarbell decided to be a writer and not an editor. The tight writing schedules and frequent travel eventually impacted Tarbell's health. Besides rest and relaxation, her treatment included taking the water cure.

She would visit the Sanitarium numerous times over the next thirty years. Tarbell continued to write profiles for McClure in the late s. She was writing a series on military affairs, and in she was set to interview Nelson A. Tarbell was allowed to keep her appointment nonetheless and observe the response at the U. Army Headquarters.

Theodore Roosevelt was already organizing what would become the Rough Riders , [ 73 ] and Tarbell said that he kept bursting into the Army office, "like a boy on roller skates. Tarbell moved to New York and accepted a position as desk editor for McClure's in Her position as editor was to fill in for Samuel McClure, as he was planning to be away from the office for several months.

Tarbell was to become known as an anchor in the office while the magazine built out its roster of investigative editors and authors. McClure's "motor.

Ida tarbell definition us history

Ray Stannard Baker was hired by the magazine to report on the Pullman Strike. Fiction editor Violo Roseboro discovered writers such as O. Tarbell was not only a journalist but also an author and lecturer, advocating for social reforms and women's rights throughout her career. She was one of the first women to gain recognition in journalism and became a role model for future female journalists who followed in her footsteps.

Tarbell's work exemplified the broader muckraking movement, which aimed to expose societal issues and push for governmental reforms that addressed corruption and corporate greed. Review Questions How did Ida M. Tarbell's work influence public perception of big corporations during the Progressive Era? Tarbell's investigative journalism significantly influenced public perception of big corporations by exposing the unethical practices of companies like Standard Oil.

Her detailed accounts of corruption and monopolistic behavior resonated with a public increasingly wary of corporate power. This shift in public opinion helped to galvanize support for antitrust regulations and reforms aimed at curbing corporate influence over politics and society.