Ida Tarbell

1857-1944

     Graduate of the Allegheny College- Ida Tarbell was the only women graduate of her class in 1880. Ida Tarbell was a very famous journalist from Erie County, Pennsylvania. Ida began her writing with biographies and after that her articles were mainly against big business', including the unfair practices of the Standard Oil company. Tarbell grew up with her father as an oilman, so she was pretty familiar with the oil business. This helped her as she looked into the Standard Oil Company and helped begin her best-known project, in which Ida looked into the Rockafellers' family oil monopoly and came across the realization that they were a very unfair business practice. All of Ida's discoveries were published into a book called The History of the Standard Oil Company in 1904. In 1911 when the U.S Supreme court was making a decision on breaking up the Standard Oil monopoly, Ida's findings and book helped contribute to the Supreme Court's decision and ending the monopoly. Ida Tarbell was one of the best journalists of the twentieth century and a very good investigative reporter. Ida Tarbell is now in the National Women's Hall of Fame, along with being honored by appearing on the U.S. postage stamp as part of the Women in Journalism stamp series. Women today can look up to people like Ida, who proved that regardless of her gender she could go to school, graduate, and go down in history as an outstanding journalist.