Long before the rise of mega-corporations like Wal-Mart and Microsoft, Standard Oil controlled the oil industry with a monopolistic force unprecedented in American business history. Undaunted by the ruthless power of its owner, John D. Rockefeller (1839'"1937), a fearless and ambitious reporter named Ida Minerva Tarbell (1857'"1944) confronted the company known simply as 'The Trust.' Through her peerless fact gathering and devastating prose, Tarbell, a muckraking reporter at McClure"s magazine, pioneered the new practice of investigative journalism. Her shocking discoveries about Standard Oil and Rockefeller led, inexorably, to a dramatic confrontation during the opening decade of the twentieth century that culminated in the landmark 1911 Supreme Court antitrust decision breaking up the monopolies and forever altering the landscape of modern American industry. Based on extensive research in the Tarbell and Rockefeller archives, Taking on the Trust is a vivid and dramatic history of the Progressive Era with powerful resonance for the first decades of the twenty-first century.

"Investigative journalist Weinberg (Armand Hammer: The Untold Story) briskly recounts the story of the rise of the Standard Oil monopoly in the late 19th century and muckraking reporter Ida Tarbell's role in bringing it down. The book is a study in opposites: John D. Rockefeller used his enormous wealth 'to establish the staid, stable family life he had lacked as a youngster.' Tarbell — raised in bourgeois stability, intellectually ravenous and interested in the women's movement from an early age — resisted women's traditional domestic role. Wishing to help address society's problems, Tarbell was lured into magazine writing, where she developed what Weinberg calls her trademark 'tone of controlled outrage.' In her articles on Standard, published just after the turn of the 20th century in McClure's and then in book form, she amassed evidence that Rockefeller engaged in 'unfair competition' and argued forcefully that all Americans should be concerned with business ethics. Her reporting helped create the modern genre of investigative journalism, and the author's brief references to Wal-Mart and contemporary journalism suggest that he hopes this engaging account — a likely pick for journalism classes — can help inspire more reporters to follow in Tarbell's footsteps. 16 pages of illus." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"It's a story that ought to thrill any investigative reporter: Bright young Ida Tarbell grew up in the oil fields of western Pennsylvania, the daughter of an independent contractor. There she witnessed John D. Rockefeller gradually building Standard Oil by crushing his competitors — including her own father — with a brilliant grasp of the market, timely political deals, industrial espionage and sheer... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) intimidation. After college, she left her home state to become one of America's first serious female journalists, writing best-selling biographies of Napoleon and Lincoln and living for a few years in Paris.

But she couldn't get the thin-lipped titan of petroleum off her mind. With the support of her crusading editor, S.S. McClure, Tarbell spent several years digging through obscure court records and interviewing Standard Oil officials. Finally, from 1902-04, she published a series of articles in McClure's magazine exposing the Rockefeller method in all its cruel efficiency. In 1911, the Supreme Court, based on evidence culled largely from her work, ruled that the mighty trust must be broken up, and the titan's reputation never recovered. A lone reporter's sense of right, it would seem, triumphed over one of the mightiest corporations in the land.

Alas, the more one knows about this oft-told story, the less romantic it appears. Rockefeller was no more — or less — evil than Andrew Carnegie, Gustavus Swift, the DuPonts or the other industrial barons of his time who made an obscene amount of money by producing vital goods at low cost (thanks, in part, to their brutal suppression of unions). And the dramatic dissolution of Standard Oil did nothing to help small oil producers compete with the leviathans. Companies that now bear the names Mobil and Exxon soon evolved from the state-level firms Standard put together to comply with the Court's ruling. By 1911, Rockefeller wasn't even running the business anymore. Then 72, he spent his days playing golf and giving money away. The breakup of Standard Oil roughly doubled the value of his stock and made him the richest man in the world. Ida Tarbell lived for another third of a century. But she never again wrote anything nearly as significant.

One may interpret the tale as an anticlimactic drama or as a populist tragedy — a lesson in how one very big business managed to survive assaults by its reform-minded opponents. Oddly, Steve Weinberg, who worked as an investigative reporter before entering academia, chooses to downplay the muckraking narrative itself. Instead, he offers a modest, if reliable, dual biography of Tarbell and Rockefeller. Along the way, he drops few hints as to why, a century ago, most citizens agreed with Theodore Roosevelt that John D. Rockefeller was one of those 'malefactors of great wealth' whose power threatened the future of American democracy itself. Only late in the book does Weinberg get around to discussing Tarbell's pathbreaking, painstaking research.

He does make clear that the woman whom Rockefeller dubbed 'Miss Tar Barrel' was a remarkable journalist. At a time when most reporters conducted a few quick interviews before rushing to their typewriters, she searched through every available written document, from the letter files of Rockefeller's competitors to decades-old local newspapers and the records of the tycoon's Baptist congregation. With the aid of Mark Twain, she also managed to get inside the headquarters of Standard Oil to grill one of Rockefeller's top executives, Henry Rogers. To ward off any hint of ethical laxity, 'Tarbell would not accept even the glass of milk offered by Rogers ... unless she could pay for it.' And her descriptive ability occasionally rose to the level of a Theodore Dreiser or a Frank Norris, the masters of naturalist fiction. 'Eyes more useful for a man of Mr. Rockefeller's practices could hardly be conceived,' Tarbell wrote after first encountering the man himself. 'They are small and intent and steady, and they are as expressionless as a wall. They see everything and reveal nothing.' Unfortunately, Weinberg's own prose is dotted with sports cliches about journalism's 'best lineup' and a reporter who was 'a team player.' He should have let Tarbell speak more for herself.

Tarbell had the gift of being able to balance moral outrage with a sense of irony. She knew how difficult it would be to root out the hypocrisy of a thoroughly 'commercial people.' Her readers admitted the accuracy of her charges against Rockefeller's empire. But many dismissed their significance, declaring, 'It's business.' Tarbell observed, 'Frequently the defender of the practice falls back on the Christian doctrine of charity, and points out that we are erring mortals and must allow for each other's weaknesses! — an excuse which, if carried to its legitimate conclusion, would leave our businessmen weeping on one another's shoulders over human frailty, while they picked one another's pockets.' Amen.

Michael Kazin's most recent book is 'A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan.' He teaches U.S. history at Georgetown University."

Reviewed by Michael Kazin, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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Most adult Americans probably recognize the name John D. Rockefeller, one of the world's wealthiest men in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and head of Standard Oil. But the name Ida Tarbell may not be as familiar. However, she was the investigative journalist whose impeccable reporting brought down Rockefeller's empire. Weinberg (journalism, U. of Missouri) tells the story of the clash between Tarbell and Rockefeller in the first dual biography of the industrial titan and the crusading journalist. Along the way, a good deal of the history of the American oil industry is shared. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

How a female investigative journalist brought down the world"s greatest tycoon and broke up the Standard Oil monopoly.

Weinberg tells the dramatic story of how a female investigative journalist brought down the world's greatest tycoon and broke up the Standard Oil monopoly at the turn of the 20th century.

The author of six books, Steve Weinberghas been a longtime board member of the National Book Critics Circle and currently teaches investigative journalism at the University of Missouri Journalism School. He lives in Columbia, Missouri.