Ida Tarbell, One of History’s Best Investigative Reporters in the First Gilded Age

Took a microscope to monopolists and John D. Rockefeller's business practices

Ida M. Tarbell (1857 – 1944) was born in rural PA, near Erie, during the early oil boom. She became a teacher, writer, and investigative journalist, best known for her ground-breaking masterpiece history of the Standard Oil Company‘s monopolistic trust that fueled the Progressive Movement and led to the break-up of the trust. Her book on Standard Oil wa…