Ida Tarbell Muckraker Author:Frances G. Conn A biography of the woman who pioneered a new style of journalism in exposing the malpractices of the oil industry at the turn of the century. — She was many things to many people: a feminist, a statesman, a social reformer, a noted biographer. To herself, she was a historian. But because of her accusations against the Standard Oil monopoly in ... more »>McClure's magazine in 1902, she is remembered as the nation's first "muckraking" journalist.
The muckrakers, so named by Theodore Roosevelt, dug deep into American life and exposed the corruption they found. None was more effective than Ida Minerva Tarbell. Born and raised in Pennsylvania's oil country, she was the natural choice for the standard Oil articles, the most dramatic of her writings. Nevertheless less, her long and active life encompassed even more. A pioneer in the unfinished task of making the United States a better place for all its people, this gentle, extraordinary woman spoke out against the effect of the tariff on consumers, the plight of factory workers, and other abuses of her day; she served on the Women's Committee during World War One, and was among the first to interview Mussolini early in his career.
Quotations from Ida Tarbell's work , collected at the end of this book,show that before her death in 1944 she was already aware of many of today's problems. Writing with warm affection, Frances Conn has based her biography of Miss Tarbell on extensive and careful research - something her subject understood well.« less