So Tarbell began her research by digging through thousands of pages of documents and conducting dozens of interviews Her series the History of the Standard Oil Company exposed the illegal and unethical practices Standard Oil had employed to take over the oil industry People across the United States clamored to read the articles which were so popular the original plan for a three part series was expanded to 19 articles In the end Standard Oil did not ruin McClure's In fact the magazine's circulation soared to nearly 500 000 subscribers For her part Tarbell became one of the most famous journalists in the country But for Tarbell writing the series was not about finding fame It was about exploring and exposing a company and an industry that had been part of her life almost from the time she was born The History of the Standard Oil Company remains one of the great case studies of what a single journalist armed with the facts can do against seeming invincible powers Childhood among Oil Fields Ida Tarbell was born on November 5 1857 in the small settlement of Hatch Hollow Pennsylvania Her parents Franklin and Esther Tarbell planned to move with their baby girl Ron Chernow Rockefeller biographer 1998
to lowa in search of new opportunities But before they did so opportunity arose closer to home In 1859 a well struck oil in northwestern Pennsylvania It was the first successful oil well in the nation's history and enterprising men flocked to the region to be part of the oil rush The automobile had not yet been invented but oil was still a valuable commodity It could be refined to make kerosene to fuel lamps Before this time lamps were generally fueled by whale oil or kerosene made from REFINING OIL coal tar But whale oil was With the discovery of oil in short supply and both refineries sprang up in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania it and kerosene from coal New York New York and were too expensive for Cleveland Ohio The process of refining oil began as the most people to afford The product was strained and loaded into wooden tanks discovery of large quantities Next the oil was boiled which of oil meant a new cheaper caused it to vaporize The various vapors were treated in source of lamp oil would different ways to form different be readily available And products The lightest vapors formed gasoline Other vapors those who sold it could became different chemical products In the early days become wealthy of the oil boom before the Franklin Tarbell wanted invention of automobiles kerosene was the most to cash in on the oil boom valuable by product of oil According to Ida her father because of its widespread use as a lamp fuel realized the oil business
had more money in it than he had ever dreamed of making He did not plan to drill a well himself Rather he would profit from building tanks in which well owners could store the oil gushing up from the ground In 1860 he moved his family to the northwestern Pennsylvania settlement of Rouseville Business was soon booming but young Ida hated her surroundings which consisted largely of oil derricks and sunken pits where unproductive wells had been abandoned As she later wrote No industry of man in its early days has ever been more destructive of beauty order decency than the production of petroleum If oil was found if the well flowed every tree every shrub every bit of grass in the vicinity was coated with black grease and left to die Despite the ugly landscape Ida's family continued prospering Soon they were able to move into a home on a hill above the town where the view was a wooded hillside not oil derricks Ida enjoyed exploring these woods until 1870 when her family moved to the nearby town of Titusville Eventually as iron tanks replaced the wooden ones Franklin made he turned to the wells and became an oil producer
Invasion of the Octopus Meanwhile as Ida grew up in oil country John D Rockefeller set his eyes on the area as well In the 1860s the young man established a refinery in his hometown of Cleveland Ohio His business started out small but Rockefeller wanted to be the biggest and the best His company began forcing smaller oil refiners and producers to sell their companies to him Rockefeller then incorporated their refineries and wells into his BUSINESS TYCOON business which eventually John D Rockefeller was born took the name Standard on July 8 1839 in Richford New York His family moved Oil Company As the several times before finally company grew and spread settling permanently in Cleveland Rockefeller's father some people called it the was a con man who scammed money with schemes such as Octopus because it seemed pretending to be a beggar to reach everywhere who was deaf and unable to speak In 1855 Rockefeller In 1871 Rockefeller and took a job as a bookkeeper In 1859 he set up a small a few other large refiners business selling grain meat made a secret illegal and other commodities before turning his attention to deal with the railroads oil His oil business eventually forming a company known made Rockefeller the richest man in America He earned as the South Improvement 10 million to 20 million a year at a time when the average Company to carry out American made 500 a year the deal The railroads
