Taking on the Trust: How Ida Tarbell Brought Down John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil
Steve Weinberg
Language: English
Pages: 336
ISBN: 0393335518
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
“A demonstration that . . . the power of the press to expose corruption was not to be ignored.”―Paul E. Steiger, Wall Street Journal
Hailed by critics on its release, this fascinating dual biography looks at two extraordinary lives and the social history of the Progressive Era. Taking on the Trust is a grand achievement by a skilled scholar and proud defender of the ever-necessary act of political journalism.16 pages of illustrations
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articles, and many books other than her Standard Oil exposé, and she spoke publicly around the nation for decades. Almost all of that is preserved, allowing a biographer to know what she was thinking at the time she thought it. How she might look to posterity apparently did not enter her mind as she shared her thoughts and feelings. In contrast, Rockefeller rarely wrote about his thoughts and feelings, rarely revealed himself in public. He left behind only a memoir that he wrote during his late
older than Tarbell, became a vocational role model and a soulmate in the realm of political philosophy. Although well educated at a female seminary in southern New Jersey, Gilder did not go to college. Her father died in the Civil War, which led her to enter the salaried workforce to help support the family. Because of a combination of considerable intelligence, capacity for long hours in an office, and a flair for the arts, Gilder made her mark quickly as a writer and editor. Her brother Richard
blessed a chosen citizenry with new riches). Almost certainly the first person to grasp the moneymaking potential of the Drake Well fully was Jonathan Watson. The Brewer, Watson lumber company had leased the land with the successful well to Drake and his investors. Calculating that the lowland areas along the local creeks held the most potential for oil strikes, Watson, on horseback, visited forty-three Titusville-area landowners. He did not ask them to sell their land outright. Instead, he