"Ida Tarbell: The Woman Who Pioneered Investigative Reporting"

"She became well known and respected for her profiles, including a long series she wrote about the life of President Abraham Lincoln for McClure’s Magazine. But Tarbell’s biggest success—and what she is memorialized for in U.S. history classes today—came when she wrote a 19-part series for the magazine on the history of John. D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. When she was 14, Rockefeller had driven her father’s oil company out of business. Clearly the experience had stuck.

Tarbell spent two years investigating the company before her first article was published in 1902. She exposed Standard Oil’s unscrupulous practices and also wrote a biting portrait of the man behind the business. Her work helped lead to the prosecution of the company under anti-trust laws."
http://msmagazine.com/blog/2015/03/24/ida-tarbell-the-woman-who-pioneered-investigative-reporting/