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Youth, education Ida Tarbell was born in Hatch Hollow, four miles south of Wattsburg in Erie County, Pennsylvania. Two of her brothers knew Abraham Lincoln, and her father was an independent oil producer in western Pennsylvania whose business failed, which he claimed was due to the practices of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company. These connections would prove influential in her later career. She received her bachelor's degree in 1880, the only woman out of 40 in her graduating class, and her master's in 1883, both from Allegheny College. McClures, investigative journalism She was hired by McClure's magazine in 1894, and her series on Abraham Lincoln nearly doubled the magazine's circulation. She soon turned to investigative journalism, and she and her fellow staff members Ray Stannard Baker and Lincoln Steffens became a group of celebrated muckrakers. Early in the 20th century, Tarbell became acquainted with Henry Huttleston Rogers, who by then was the most senior and powerful director of Standard Oil, through his friend, Mark Twain. Meetings between Tarbell and Rogers began in January of 1902 and continued regularly over the next two years. Tarbell would bring up various case histories and Rogers would provide for her an explanation, documents and figures concerning the case. Rogers was surprisingly open with Tarbell. It has been speculated that he realized she would write the series with or without his help, and he wanted to make sure her information was correct. Following extensive interviews with Rogers, her investigation of Standard Oil for McClure's ran in 19 parts from November 1902 to October 1904. After the series ran, the parts were collected and published as a best-selling book, The History of the Standard Oil Company, in 1904. Although public opposition to Rockefeller and Standard Oil existed prior to Tarbell's investigation, her work fueled public attacks on Standard Oil and on trusts in general, and the book is credited with hastening the 1911 breakup of Standard Oil. "They had never played fair, and that ruined their greatness for me," she wrote about the company. American Magazine, writing books 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. She and most of the rest of the staff left the magazine in 1915. During this time, Tarbell also contributed to Collier's Weekly. Some of Tarbell's other books include The Nationalizing of Business, 1878–1898 (1936), and her autobiography, All in the Day's Work (1939). She died of pneumonia in 1944, at the age of 86. Heritage, memorials Tarbell helped pioneer journalism as a career for women. Her 1904 book The History of the Standard Oil Company came in fifth in a 1999 list of the top 100 works of journalism in the 20th century. On October 7 2000, Ida Tarbell 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. See also | ||||||||||
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