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The History of the Standard Oil Company
Ida Tarbell Through her achievements, she not only helped to expand the role of the newspaper in modern society and stimulate the Progressive reform movement, but she also became a role model for women wishing to become professional journalists.
Ida Tarbell never married. Instead, against her societal norms, she became one of the foremost journalists and writers of her time.
She was the only woman in her graduating class at Allegheny College in 1880. The McClure’s magazine journalist was an investigative reporting pioneer; Tarbell exposed unfair practices of the Standard Oil Company, leading to a U.S. Supreme Court decision to break its monopoly.
Tarbell Exposes The Standard Oil Company Her study of Rockefeller’s practices as he built Standard Oil into one of the world’s largest business monopolies took many years to complete. The Court found that Standard was an illegal monopoly and ordered it broken into 34 separate companies.
Ida Tarbell charged that Standard Oil was using illegal methods to hurt or destroy smaller oil companies. She investigated these illegal business dealings and wrote about them for a magazine called McClure’s. The reports she wrote led to legal cases that continued all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Journalist Ida M. Tarbell
John D. Rockefeller
Her best-known work, The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904), exposed the questionable business practices of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust, which had been formed when Rockefeller combined all his corporations in an attempt to reduce competition and control prices in the oil industry.
After her education and to accumulate writing experience, Tarbell began working at McClure’s Magazine, where she wrote several successful series on historical figures. Eventually, Tarbell uncovered a crucial piece of evidence proving that Standard Oil was rigging railroad prices and preying on its competition.
If Standard Oil existed today in its single trust format, it would have been worth over $1 trillion making it the richest company in the world alongside Apple. And, John D. Rockefeller, if he were around today, would have had a net worth of around $400 billion, making him the richest man in the world.
His personal wealth at the time was estimated at $900 million in 1913, which was almost 3% of the US GDP that year. This makes John D. Rockefeller the richest person in American history. Today, the Rockefeller family is worth an estimated $11 billion dollars.
Now entering its seventh generation with as many as 170 heirs, the Rockefeller family has maintained substantial wealth — they had an $11 billion fortune in 2016, according to Forbes. There are now over 250 members of the family who are direct descendants of John D. Rockefeller and Laura Spelman Rockefeller.
Family Matters
Rank | Family | Origin of Wealth |
---|---|---|
#1 | Walton Family | Walmart |
#2 | Koch Family | Koch Industries |
#3 | Mars Family | Mars Inc. |
#4 | Cargill-MacMillan Family | Cargill Inc. |