Ida Tarbell and the Muckrakers by Longtime Contributor Carlton Martz World History: the Anglo-Zulu War and British Imperialism by Carlton Martz U.S

Bill of Rights Constitutional Rights in Action Foundation SPRING 2019 Volume 34 No3 IDA TARBELL AND THEMUCKRAKERS The Ida M. Tarbell Collection, Pelletier Library, Allegheny College Allegheny Library, Pelletier Collection, Ida M. Tarbell The

Ida Tarbell helped pioneer investigative journalism when Meanwhile, as Ida grew up, her mother Esther com- she wrote a series of magazine articles about John D. plained about the drudgery of a homemaker. She thought Rockefeller and his Standard Oil Trust. She and other jour- it was a waste of a woman’s time, which should be fo- nalists, who were called “muckrakers,” aided Progressive Movement reform efforts. But Tarbell also had another cused more on educational pursuits. At a young age, Ida side to her career. vowed never to marry. In 1876, Tarbell enrolled in Allegheny College, one of Ida Tarbell was born in western Pennsylvania in the first women to do so. She studied biology, a field al- 1857, two years before oil was discovered nearby. This most totally dominated by men. She learned the scientific set off the first oil boom in the United States. Her father, method, which involves proving facts by observation. Franklin, soon joined others to become independent oil After graduating in 1880, she taught school for a producers and refiners. short time, but then got a job on the staff of a magazine In 1860, John D. Rockefeller, a 21-year-old book- that promoted education and culture for America’s grow- keeper from Ohio, appeared in the Pennsylvania oil ing middle class. She gained valuable experience as a fields and began to buy out the independent oil men. writer and editor. Some independents like Ida’s father refused his offers In 1891, Tarbell decided to take a radical leap in her and Rockefeller made their businesses suffer. life and moved to Paris. She immersed herself in French BENEATH THE SURFACE The first article in this issue analyzes the career of Ida Tarbell who pioneered what we now call “investigative journalism” and shows her similarities and differences with the “muckrakers” of her time. The second article takes a close look at what the Anglo-Zulu War in South Africa in the 19th century shows us about British imperialist policy. The third article outlines the background and possible out- comes of the investigation by Robert Mueller into Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election. U.S. History: Ida Tarbell and the Muckrakers by longtime contributor Carlton Martz World History: The Anglo-Zulu War and British Imperialism by Carlton Martz U.S. Government/Current Issues: Will the Mueller Probe End With a Constitutional Crisis? by contributing writer Patrick Jenning

© 2019, Constitutional Rights Foundation, Los Angeles. All Constitutional Rights Foundation materials and publications, including Bill of Rights in Action, are protected by copyright. However, we hereby grant to all recipients a license to reproduce all material contained herein for distribution to students, other school site personnel, and district administrators. (ISSN: 1534-9799) culture, took classes on historical writing, and wrote a In 1900, Republicans William McKinley and biography of a woman involved in the French Revolu- Theodore Roosevelt were elected president and vice tion. She supported herself by writing articles about president. The following year, McKinley was assas- French life for American newspapers and magazines. sinated and Roosevelt, a former governor of New Back home, a reform movement was gathering steam. York, became president. He was known as a pro- Rise of the Progressive Movement business conservative Republican. But he had been drifting in a progressive direction, speaking out Industrialization took hold in the U.S. after the against the excessive power and political influence Civil War. This meant the rapid growth of large corpo- of large corporations. rations, banks to finance them, and railroads to ship In his first message to Congress, Roosevelt cheered their products. For example, by the 1890s, nearly every the state of the economy. He was not opposed to large cor- household lamp in the U. S. was lit by kerosene refined porations, he declared. But he called for them to be “su- and sold by Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. pervised” and reasonably controlled by the government. Millions of men, women, and children left farms He soon came to see magazines like McClure’s as allies. to labor in textile (cloth-making) mills, factories, iron and steel foundries, and other industries fueled by coal Tarbell’s Investigation of Standard Oil and oil. Much of this industrial activity occurred in the In 1882, Rockefeller formed the Standard Oil Trust. big cities, which drew large numbers of immigrants This was a huge collection of oil producing, refining, re- from eastern and southern Europe. tailing, and related companies. By 1900, the Trust con- Successful corporation owners like Rockefeller and trolled nearly a 90 percent monopoly of the entire a growing middle class of managers prospered. But petroleum industry in the U.S. workers, both native-born and immigrant, barely sur- In 1890, Ohio sued the Standard Oil of Ohio Com- vived on low wages, labored long hours under often pany because it was controlled by the Trust in New York harsh working conditions, and lived in crowded slum City, a violation of the state’s law. The state supreme apartments called tenements. court ordered the Ohio company to be separated from Business abuses by corporations and the Trust. But this never happened, and railroads led Congress to enact some fed- Tarbell discovered Ohio eventually dropped the case. eral reform laws, such as a law to require Finally, in 1899, the Standard Oil “reasonable and just” railroad freight that Standard Oil Trust reorganized under New Jersey law rates and a law to prohibit corporate mo- used bribery, fraud, that allowed corporations to hold stock in nopolies from eliminating competition in other corporations. This made Standard order to charge higher prices. Corpora- and selling oil Oil of New Jersey a holding company that tions challenged these and other laws in below cost. owned stock in numerous corporations courts that often ruled in their favor. throughout the country. Rockefeller’s oil By 1900, the Progressive Movement demanded empire could now function in dozens of businesses new reforms. Writers, politicians, and other middle class such as refining, manufacturing, transportation, and in- reformers called progressives became increasingly vocal vestments. Profits were enormous because there were about injustices in American society. They condemned no personal or corporate income taxes. poverty, child labor, unsafe working conditions, gov- Sam McClure decided to focus his magazine’s cov- ernment corruption, the lack of regulation of big busi- erage on Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. After learning that nesses, and other social ills. Tarbell had grown up in the Pennsylvania oil fields and At this time, new magazines with a nation-wide had witnessed Rockefeller’s early practices there, he as- circulation emerged. Aimed at the middle class, they signed her to the story. began to add factual articles to the fiction and poetry of Starting in 1901, Tarbell traveled the country on an ex- traditional literary magazines. hausting investigation of Standard Oil. She read books and In 1893, Sam McClure and his partner John Phillips newspaper files on trusts and monopolies, studied reports founded McClure’s Magazine. McClure assembled a of congressional and state legislature hearings, examined group of talented writers who were paid a monthly thousands of documents, and reviewed court testimony. salary that enabled them to do in-depth investigative re- Tarbell also interviewed many who had had deal- porting on economic, social, and political issues. ings with Rockefeller. This even included a Standard Oil McClure met Ida Tarbell in Paris and was im- executive at the corporate office in New York City. She pressed with her writing. In 1894, he recruited her to never interviewed Rockefeller himself, however, since join the staff of his magazine in New York City. She he went to great lengths to protect his privacy. Tarbell wrote popular biographical series on Napoleon and had to hire an assistant to help her comprehend the Lincoln. She went on to be one of McClure’s editors. massive amount of material she collected.

2 U.S.WORLD HISTORY HISTORY BRIA 34:3 (Spring 2019) Tarbell’s first article in Tarbell discovered that McClure’s appeared in the Standard Oil used bribery, November 1902 issue. A fraud, and selling oil below planned few articles turned cost to enable its scheme to into a long series that work. The company bribed ended in October 1904. railroad clerks to report the Later she wrote a book, quantity, quality, and sell- The History of the Standard ing price of independent oil Oil Company, based on her shipments. The company magazine articles. owned stock in the rail- Spurred by the suc- Michigan) of (University Library Digital HathiTrust roads and used its influ- cess of the Standard Oil ence to delay shipments by series, McClure was deter- independents to refineries. mined to dig deeper into In 1892, the federal In- the dark side of American terstate Commerce Commis- life. He declared he be- sion (ICC) ruled against lieved in “a vigilant and rebates by the railroads that well-informed press, set- discriminated against the in- ting forth the truth.” dependent oil companies. The Most Famous The railroads refused to com- Woman in America ply. In 1895, the ICC repeated its ruling. The railroads then Tarbell found that took the matter into the from the earliest days of courts where the issue re- the Pennsylvania oil boom, mained undecided for years. Rockefeller plotted to own Company agents worked the entire oil industry in at the retail level too. They the U.S. and even the forced store owners to sell world. His strategy was to only Standard Oil products buy out successful inde- or face being undersold at pendent oil men by persua- Starting in 1902, Tarbell’s articles about Standard Oil were serial- ized (published in a series of installments) in McClure’s magazine. prices below cost. Tarbell re- sion or by threat. Suddenly, vealed that “Standard Oil she wrote, “a big hand knows practically where every barrel shipped by reached out” to steal their good fortune. every independent dealer goes; and where every bar- Rockefeller’s key method of doing this was to make rel bought by every corner-grocer from Maine to secret deals with railroads that agreed to rebate (return California comes from.” to) him a significant portion of the official oil trans- Tarbell did not condemn Standard Oil for being portation rate he paid. Then to make up for this dis- too big or even a monopoly. She even wrote a chap- count, the railroads doubled the rate they charged ter in her book on “The Legitimate Greatness of the Rockefeller’s competitors. He could then sell his oil Standard Oil Company.” But she explained, “They cheaper on the market and force his competitors out of had never played fair, and that ruined their greatness business if they refused his offers to buy them out. for me.” Once Rockefeller’s competition was eliminated in a The McClure’s series on Standard Oil was so popu- region, a Standard Oil monopoly existed that could jack lar that Tarbell became a national celebrity. Sam McClure up oil prices. Tarbell estimated that the consumer paid called her “the most famous woman in America.” up to a third more for oil products. Excerpt From Ida Tarbell’s The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904)

To know every detail of the oil trade, to be able to reach at any moment its remotest point, to control even its weakest factor — this was John D. Rockefeller’s ideal of doing business. It seemed to be an intellectual necessity for him to be able to direct the course of any particular gallon of oil from the moment it gushed from the earth until it went into the lamp of a housewife. . . . In spite of his bold pretensions and his perfect organisation, a few obstinate oil refiners still lived and persisted in doing business. They were a fly in his ointment — a stick in his wonderful wheel. He must get them out; other- wise the Great Purpose would be unrealised. And so, while engaged in organising the world’s markets, he incidentally carried on a campaign against those who dared intrude there.

BRIA 34:3 (Spring 2019) U.S. HISTORY 3 However, Tarbell was not finished with Rockefeller. gasoline-powered cars were beginning to replace the In 1905, she wrote a long biographical profile of him in horse and buggy. McClure’s. Despite his well-known charity giving and The Other Ida Tarbell church attendance, she described him as obsessed with Tarbell and others left McClure’s in 1906 and pur- money. He was, Tarbell wrote, “the man with a mask chased the American Magazine. They wanted to write and a steel grip, forever peering into hidden places for more about what was right in America. In 1915, she money, always more money; planning in secret to left this magazine to become a freelance writer and lec- wrest it even from his friends, never forgetting, never turer on current issues. resting, never satisfied.” Tarbell seemed to soften her progressive image Tarbell concluded, “Our national life is on every when she began to write positive articles about busi- side distinctly poorer, uglier, meaner for the kind of in- ness and corporate leaders. Unlike some of the muck- fluence he exercises.” Rockefeller remained publicly rakers, she was not a foe of capitalism. She admired silent after this personal attack, but privately called Henry Ford and wrote a friendly profile of U.S. Steel Tarbell “Miss Tarbarrel.” board chairman Elbert Gary. The Muckrakers Confusingly, she wrote that “the business of being Tarbell’s astounding popular success spurred in- a woman” should be as a homemaker and to raise chil- vestigative reporting by McClure’s and other magazines. dren, especially “opening a child’s mind” to learning. But in 1906, President Roosevelt grew disturbed that too This view contradicted her entire career as an unmar- many writers were raking the “filth of the floor” of ried and childless professional journalist. American society while ignoring what was good about Tarbell also strongly opposed women’s suffrage it. Such writers were soon called “muckrakers.” (right to vote). She argued that politics would corrupt Although they were guided by the facts they in- women. She was convinced women did not need more vestigated, the muckrakers had a point of view. They rights. Instead, they should embrace their natural gifts wanted to reform the economic, social, and political as wife and mother. Her mother was a lifelong suffra- conditions that troubled society. Thus they became part gist. Her progressive journalist colleagues were puz- of the Progressive Movement. Tarbell, however, re- zled. However, after the 19th Amendment granted jected the label of muckraker. Instead, she described women the right to vote in 1920, she traveled the coun- herself as an historian. try and found women voting enthusiastically. So she Tarbell and the muckrakers made important con- changed her mind. She even remarked that a woman tributions to the Progressive Movement. The Hepburn should someday be president. Act of 1906 gave authority to the Interstate Commerce Ida Tarbell died in 1944 at 86. She is remembered Commission to set reasonable railroad freight rates that today mainly as a muckraker journalist, a term she did not favor big companies. The 16th Amendment en- hated. Her major contribution to journalism, however, abled Congress to enact an income tax on individuals was the fact-based investigative reporting that she pi- and corporations. The 17th Amendment provided for oneered and passed on to today’s journalists. the direct election of U.S. senators rather than them being appointed by state legislatures, often as a result WRITING & DISCUSSION of political corruption. 1. How could monopolies like Standard Oil be harm- The work of Tarbell and others led to many anti- ful to the consumer? trust lawsuits to finally curb the power of monopolies 2. What do you think was the worst aspect of like Standard Oil. Roosevelt brought dozens of federal Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company that Tarbell anti-trust lawsuits against corporate giants. revealed? Why? One of the most important federal anti-trust ac- 3. How did the muckrakers play an important role tions was Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. in the Progressive Movement? United States. In 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the purpose of the Standard Oil Trust was “to drive ACTIVITY: Who Was Ida Tarbell? others from the field and exclude them from the right Ida Tarbell was a complicated, even contradictory, to trade.” The Court ordered the breakup of Standard person. Meet in small groups to discuss, choose, Oil into over 30 independent competing companies and report which one of the following terms best such as today’s Exxon. describes her. Justify your choice with evidence Rockefeller lost his quest to totally own the oil from the article. business. Ironically, he became even richer because he Muckraker Historian Investigative Journalist received cash and oil stock from the breakup just as Progressive Liberated Woman Hypocrite

4 WORLD HISTORY BRIA 34:3 (Spring 2019) Sources Electronic-only Edition of Ida Tarbell Bill of Rights in Action Chernow, Ron. Titan, the Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. New York: Vintage Books, 1998. • Goodwin, Doris Kearns. The Bully Pulpit, Theodore Your copy will arrive via email up to Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism. New three weeks before the printed issue. York: Simon & Schuster, 2013. • Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform, Sign up or make the switch today at: From Bryan to FDR. New York: Vintage Books, 1955. • Hillstrom, Laurie www.crf-usa.org/bria Collier. The Muckrakers and the Progressive Era. Detroit: Omnigraphics, 2010. • “Ida Tarbell.” Wikipedia. 9/30/18. URL: en.wikipedia.org. • “Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.” Wikipedia. 11/1/18. URL: en.wikipedia.org. • Kochersberger, Robert. ed. More Than a Muckraker, Ida Tarbell’s Lifetime in Journalism. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, About Constitutional Rights Foundation 1994. • McCully, Emily Arnold. Ida M. Tarbell, The Woman Who Challenged Big Business and Won! Boston: Clarion Books, 2014. • “Muck- Constitutional Rights Foundation is a non-profit, non- raker.” Wikipedia. 10/11/18. URL: en.wikipedia.org. • “Sherman Antitrust partisan educational organization committed to helping our Act of 1890.” Wikipedia. 11/8/18. URL: en.wikipedia.org. • “Standard nation’s young peo-ple to become active citizens and to Oil.” Wikipedia. 10/30/18. URL: en.wikipedia.org. • Tarbell, Ida M. The understand the rule of law, the legal process, and their History of the Standard Oil Company. vol. 2. New York: McClure, Phillips & constitutional heritage. Established in 1962, CRF is guided Co., 1904. • ______. “John D. Rockefeller: A Character Study.” Part by a dedicated board of directors drawn from the worlds of Two. McClure’s Mag-azine. Aug. 1905. URL: reformation.org/john-d- law, business, government, education, and the media. rockefeller2.html. • Weinberg, Steve. Taking on the Trust, The Epic Battle of CRF’s program areas include the California State Mock Trial, Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008. Expanding Horizons Internships, Civic Action Project, Cops & Kids, teacher pro-fessional development, and publications Standards Addressed and curriculum materials. Learn more at www.crf-usa.org. Board Chair: Peter B. Morrison Ida Tarbell Publications Committee: K. Eugene Shutler, Chair; Douglas National U.S. History Standard 20: Understands how Progressives and others ad- dressed problems of industrial capitalism, urbanization, and political corruption. High A. Thompson, Vice Chair; Vikas Arora; Margaret H. School Benchmark 1: Understands the origins and impact of the Progressive move- Gillespie; Elliot Hinds; Louis E. Kempinsky; Gary Olsen; ment (e.g., social origins of Progressives and how these contributed to the success Howard M. Privette; Patrick G. Rogan; Peggy Saferstein; and failure of the movement; Progressive reforms pertaining to big business, and Gloria Franke Shaw. worker’s and consumer’s rights; arguments of Progressive leaders). Margaret H. Gillespie, Gary Olsen, Peggy Saferstein, California History-Social Science Standard 11.2: Students analyze the relationship among Committee Reviewers. the rise of industrialization, large-scale rural-to-urban migration, and massive immigra- tion from Southern and Eastern Europe. (9) Understand the effect of political programs Staff: Marshall Croddy, President; Patrick Jenning, Carlton and activities of the Progressives (e.g., federal regulation of railroad transport, Chil- Martz, Writers; Damon Huss, Editor; Andrew Costly, Sr. dren’s Bureau, the Sixteenth Amendment, Theodore Roosevelt, Hiram Johnson). Publications Manager. Common Core State Standards: SL.11-12.1, SL.11-12.3, RH.11-12.1, RH.11-12.3, WHST.11-12.10.

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