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Pronieer Investigative Journalist
"There is no man more dangerous, in a position of power, than he who refuses to accept as a working truth the idea that all a man does should make for rightness and soundness, that even the fixing of a tariff rate must be moral."
American journalist, lecturer, author, and chronicler of American industry best known for her classic, The History of the Standard Oil Company, (1904). She was among a group of so-called "muckrakers" who helped establish the field of investigative journalism.
Tarbell was raised in a small town in Erie County, Pennsylvania. Her family was personally impacted by the extremely aggressive business tactics of John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company and was eventually forced into bankruptcy. Tarbell attended Allegheny College (Meadville, Pennsylvania), and graduated as the only woman student in her class. She taught briefly before becoming an editor for the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (1883-91). In 1891, she went to Paris, where she enrolled in the Sorbonne and supported herself by writing articles for American magazines. S.S. McClure, ,founder of McClure's Magazine, hired her in 1894. The History of the Standard Oil Company, originally a serial that ran in McClure's is one of the most through accounts of the rise of a business monopoly and its use of unfair practices. Her reporting contributed to the subsequent breakup of Standard Oil, which was found to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The articles also helped to define a growing trend of investigation, exposé, and crusading in liberal journals of the day.
Tarbell's association with McClure's lasted until 1906. She wrote for American Magazine, which she also co-owned (with Lincoln Steffens and others) and coedited, from 1906 to 1915, the year the magazine was sold. She lectured for a time on the Chautauqua circuit and wrote several popular biographies, including eight books on Abraham Lincoln. later she serves as a member of various government conferences and committees concerned with defense, industry, unemployment and other issues. Her autobiography, All in a Day's Work, was published in 1939.
Tarbell's legacy as someone who took seriously the credo that journalists should "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted' lives on. The house where she liveed in Easton, Connecticut, became a National Historic Landmark in 1993.
