Born in 1857 and raised in oil country, Ida M. Tarbell was one of the
first investigative journalists and probably the most influential in her
time. Her series of articles on the Standard Oil Trust, a complicated
business empire run by John D. Rockefeller, revealed to readers the
underhanded, even illegal practices that had led to Rockefeller's
success. Rejecting the term "muckraker" to describe her profession, she
went on to achieve remarkable prominence for a woman of her generation
as a writer and shaper of public opinion. This biography offers an
engrossing portrait of a trailblazer in a man's world who left her mark
on the American consciousness.