Ida M. Tarbell: The Woman Who Challenged Big Business—and Won! by Emily Arnold McCully (review)

Turn-of-the-century journalist Ida Tarbell never set out to become a muckraker, and indeed that term, used pejoratively at the time, is not one she embraced. Young Ida wanted to be a naturalist, a career whose doors were pretty tightly closed even against women with considerable education. Her talent for clear, concise science writing, though, sent her on a path through the Chautauqua system and on to McClure’s Magazine, where she rose through staff positions and on to investigative journalism. Somewhat detached in tone—and in keeping with the reticence for personal revelation Tarbell exhibited in her autobiography—this reads more like an intellectual history than an intimate biography. McCully tacitly credits her readers with a fair amount of prior background knowledge on the Progressive Era and its major players, making this title a better choice for researchers than casual readers. As Tarbell makes her steady and frequently lonely progress as a nationally prominent writer, she’s continually upstaged here by her nemesis John D. Rockefeller; her boss Sam McClure; and of course the larger-than-life presence, Theodore Roosevelt. McCully frequently explains or apologizes for Tarbell’s rejection of women’s suffrage, an approach that would have gained more traction had this title focused more systematically on that issue. Nor is Tarbell’s investigative style compared with other contemporary women writers such as the redoubtable Nellie Bly, leaving McCully’s claim that “in her time, Ida M. Tarbell was the only woman doing investigative reporting” in sore need of defense. Nonetheless, McCully’s workmanlike narration and the generous inclusion of photographs will make this a useful overview for students examining the development of American journalism and the role of the press in the struggle to regulate big business.