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Ida Tarbell and McClure's Magazine cover featuring photograph of John D. Rockefeller.
Credit: Library of Congress; (Inset) Allegheny College
Ida Tarbell's investigation of John D. Rockefeller and the sharp practices of his Standard Oil monopoly appeared in McClure's Magazine, in nineteen installments, beginning in November, 1902. These articles and her book, The History of Standard Oil, published in 1904, turned Tarbell into a national celebrity and the most prominent woman among a new generation of investigative journalists whom President Theodore Roosevelt called