Ida Tarbell was born, in the town of Hatch Hollow, in Amity Township, Pennsylvania, to Esther and Franklin Tarbell. The Tarbell family had planned to relocate to Iowa before Ida’s birth, and Franklin missed his daughter’s birth as the Panic of 1857 left him stuck at the unfinished new home without finances. Franklin Tarbell, working as a teacher along the way, returned 18 months later to Esther and Ida in Pennsylvania.

The Civil War ended in 1865, when Tarbell was eight years old.

Rockefeller’s quest for dominance in the oil industry meant that he would stop at nothing to suppress competition. One of the most notable events in this march towards monopoly was the Cleveland Massacre. Negotiating with the railroad oil transporters, Rockefeller secretly organised the raising of railroad prices, with rebates going directly to Standard Oil, leaving smaller independent refineries with suddenly higher costs and correspondingly less demand for their oil. Ida Tarbell’s father was one such independent oil worker who experienced Rockefeller’s underhand business practices. Despite criticism for this act, Rockefeller was unshakeable, and in early 1872 he used hostile acquisition to eliminate 22 oil competitors in Cleveland.

One of Tarbell’s pieces for The Chautauquan was “Women as Inventors,” based on a research project she conducted to investigate the number and range of women patent-holders in Washington D.C. Surveying approximately 2,000 patent-holders, Tarbell’s article offered her declarations on the importance of recognising and supporting women’s inventions to society and economy. The piece also offered her views on journalism as a professional space for women.

After finishing the Madame Roland biography, Tarbell accepted a position with McClure’s magazine, which she had been contributing to for about a year. Tarbell ultimately returned to the USA and relocated to New York City, promptly beginning her first major work for McClure’s – a biographical series on Napoleon Bonaparte. Due to the tight deadlines imposed by McClure’s, Tarbell’s Bonaparte series came out rapidly, and she utilised both historians’ collections and archival material to fill each instalment with a compelling narrative. The series was a success for McClure’s, but also a personal triumph for Tarbell as she fortified her reputation as a writer and fine-tuned her “Great-man” style of investigative writing. By 1899, Tarbell was an editor at McClure’s.

By the 1900’s, a new form of early investigative journalism was emerging in the US media landscape, which would come to be known as “Muckraking.” McClure’s was at the forefront of this pivot, as they aimed to “expose the ills of American society” and rake the mud up for everyone to see. Tarbell, inspired by her long-standing relationship with the Pennsylvania oil industry and fascination with Great-man history, began investigating John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. Her research revealed the hostile, corrupt and immoral practices of Standard Oil as it pursued total dominance of the industry. Despite attempts at intimidation by Rockefeller, Tarbell’s thorough research and undeniable narrative of an unregulated economic giant captivated the public. From 1903, each instalment of the series utilised primary sources to expose specific practices and moments from Standard Oil’s history to illuminate the evils of monopolies at large, not just oil. When published as a book in 1904, The History of the Standard Oil Company was a landmark moment in the history of both American journalism and economic regulation.

After her time at McClure’s, Tarbell’s work evolved to include public speaking, travelling across the USA giving lectures on a range of political, economic and social topics. One of the topics Tarbell discussed, and wrote further on, was the role of women in society and women’s suffrage. Tarbell’s attitudes towards the suffrage movement distanced her from what she saw as the more hard-line, militant approach. Tarbell focused much of her writing on how she believed women could pursue professional careers, while preserving the “boundaries” between men and women. Much of her writing was denounced by the suffrage movement, including her own mother Esther, as Tarbell asserted that women “had a business assigned by nature and society” that they must fulfil. Despite her initial position, Tarbell publicly supported women’s suffrage after enfranchisement.

Ida Tarbell’s recognition as a writer and lecturer gained her the recognition to be invited by Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding to sit on a number of committees and presidential conferences. Despite the initial hostility of the suffragettes, Tarbell was first included in the 1917 Women’s Committee for the Council of National Defense. She was known to have won over the committee, and acted as an informal liaison between the Men and Women’s committees.

At 82 years old, after a career of writing others’ biographies, Tarbell completed her autobiography All in The Day’s Work. She died 4 years later in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Tarbell’s combination of rigorous research, a history-style of narrative and compelling writing is credited with helping to develop the standard of American investigative journalism.