Ida Tarbell: truth be told 

Ida Tarbell went looking for dirt, and grrl, did she ever find it!  Born in the 1850’s Ida was one of the first women to graduate from Allegheny College and that was just the beginning of her “first woman ever” career.  She started out as a teacher, but realized that her true love was writing.  She started editing and writing for a magazine published by the Methodist Church but realized that the stories she wrote didn’t seem to have much punch.  People would read them and forget them, and Ida wasn’t the sort who liked to be forgotten!  She traveled across the US and then visited France for a few years, during which time she began to suspect that journalists didn’t know half of what was going on around them.  Ida began to wonder what sorts of stories she could find by digging a little deeper into an issue, learning a little bit more, asking the questions that no one wanted to ask.  She started to dig.

When she returned to the US, she joined other reform-minded journalists and helped give birth to the stuff of TV shows.  No, I’m serious, her work gave birth to investigative journalism, without which your evening news would be bland, and none of those “behind the scenes” shows we love so much would even exist.  Kiss your TV and thank Ida for bringing you hours of entertainment!

Ida wasn’t looking to amuse, however.  She took on one of the richest men around, John D. Rockefeller, and his financial baby, the Standard Oil Trust.  Her “History of the Standard Oil Company” published in 1904 was the first piece of expose journalism, and she created a style that became known far and wide as “muckraking”.  She rallied public sentiment against the abusive working conditions and big business maneuverings she found at the Standard Oil Trust, and forced the government to prosecute the company, leading to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Ida dug into the hidden dirt of politics and corporate greed, and she became the most famous journalist of her day.  She even founded a magazine, named the “American Magazine”, where she continued to raise eyebrows and public interest in various causes.  She became the champion of crusades ranging from the rights of women, to safe working conditions in World War I, to the need for tariff reforms.  As President Woodrow Wilson noted, Ida “has written more good sense, good plain common sense...than any man I know”.  High praise from a high position at a time when journalism wasn’t exactly considered “appropriate” for women!

Along with fellow muckrakers Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, and Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell brought about a new style of journalism.  She didn’t set out to change the world, she just did what she saw was right, and let other people decide if they were going to follow her lead.  Ida dug up the dirt on everyone, and was brutally honest about everything.  She opened a door for women in journalism, and she opened a door for journalists into activism.  Ida opened the door for you too, but it’s up to you whether you’re going to walk on through.

 

Leslie Clay grrl-e-grrl.com contributor