Biography ida tarbell house of mirth

She was the only woman in her graduating class at Allegheny College in Supreme Court decision to break its monopoly. Ida Minerva Tarbell was born on November 5, , in the oil-rich region of northwestern Pennsylvania. Her father was an oil producer and refiner whose livelihood — like many others in the area — was negatively impacted by an price-fixing scheme concocted by the Pennsylvania Railroad and John D.

Witnessing the impact of these events on her family and others left a profound impression on the young girl and would prove pivotal in her later life. Tarbell attended Titusville High school and graduated with honors in The following year she enrolled at Allegheny College, where she pursued studies in biology but also began to develop a strong interest in writing.

She graduated as the only woman in her class in and took a teaching job in Poland, Ohio. But after two years, she resigned from her post in pursuit of a writing career. Returning to Pennsylvania, Tarbell became acquainted with the editor of a small magazine called The Chautauquan and was offered a job with the journal. She worked there for the remainder of the decade, holding various positions before becoming its managing editor.

In , however, she left both the paper and the country, moving overseas to Paris for several years to pursue graduate studies at the Sorbonne and the College de France.

Born in and raised in oil country, Ida M. Tarbell was one of the first investigative journalists and probably the most influential in her time.

While in Paris, Tarbell continued to work as a journalist, contributing articles to American magazines. But it was when Tarbell decided to mine her own past that her writing would achieve its greatest effect. Like many young journalists of her era, Tarbell had become concerned by the proliferation of monopolies and trusts. In she proposed a series of articles in which she would use her experiences as a child during the South Improvement scandal to illustrate her points and spent the next several years deeply immersed in research on the Standard Oil Company and John D.