Tarbell, Ida M

Tarbell, Ida M(inerva)

(born Nov. 5, 1857, Erie county, Pa., U.S.—died Jan. 6, 1944, Bridgeport, Conn.) U.S. investigative journalist, lecturer, and chronicler of American industry. In 1891 Tarbell went to Paris, where she supported herself by writing for U.S. magazines. She became best known for The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904), an account of the rise of a business monopoly that first appeared serially in McClure's Magazine and led to the government's epochal antitrust suit against the company. For her work Tarbell became one of the journalists Theodore Roosevelt dubbed muckrakers.