All in the Day’s Work: An Autobiography

by Ida Tarbell

This autobiography of the great female journalist and muckraker Ida M. Tarbell includes the following chapters:

1. My Start in Life
2. I Decide to Be a Biologist
3. A Coeducational College of the Eighties
4. A Start and a Retreat
5. A Fresh Start—A Second Retreat
6. I Fall in Love
7. A First Book—On Nothing Certain a Year
8. The Napoleon Movement of the Nineties
9. Good-Bye to France
10. Rediscovering My Country
11. A Captain of Industry Seeks My Acquaintance
12. Muckraker or Historian?
13. Off With the Old—On With the New
14. The Golden Rule in Industry
15. A New Profession
16. Women and War
17. After the Armistice
18. Gambling With Security
19. Looking Over the Country
20. Nothing New Under the Sun

Genres: Nonfiction, American History, History, Journalism, Memoir

440 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Ida Minerva Tarbell was an American teacher, author and journalist. She was known as one of the leading "muckrakers" of the progressive era, work known in modern times as "investigative journalism". She wrote many notable magazine series and biographies. She is best-known for her 1904 book The History of the Standard Oil Company, which was listed as No. 5 in a 1999 list by the New York Times of the top 100 works of 20th-century American journalism.[1] She became the first person to take on Standard Oil. She began her work on The Standard after her editors at McClure's Magazine called for a story on one of the trusts.

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Reviews

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best ways to gain perspective on current events is to reacquaint oneself with what has gone before. Reading Ida Tarbell’s autobiography is like sitting across from a smart, hard-working, dignified and wise woman as she humbly shares what she has learned about people and society from eighty years of experiences in the world.

Ms. Tarbell’s work in journalism and writing is the main focus of the book, relating, of course, her famous exposé on Standard Oil. However, there is much more to the story than her muckraking journalism. She knew and socialized with many famous historical figures, such as Alexander Graham Bell, Lincoln Steffans, Mark Twain, and Thomas Edison; and she met and interviewed many more, including Abraham Lincoln’s son, Robert, Presidents Wilson, T. Roosevelt, and McKinley, and even Benito Mussolini. Included are quite a few passages relating personal anecdotes about these famous characters.

For me, the biggest surprise in the book is the deep insight she brings into world affairs and sociological forces. Especially in our times of turmoil, it is reassuring to become immersed in the wisdom of a woman who experienced much cataclysmic global change and uproar. She talks of the cyclical nature of war, economic troubles, and social troubles; but she also asserts that she looks on these cycles as a spiral. Tarbell believes that humanity is spiraling upward, slowly and
inconsistently, but upward nonetheless. Especially in these days of discouragement and fear that humankind is headed down the wrong path, these words are very welcome.

Tarbell’s focus on factual reporting, without becoming an advocate for one faction or another, is an important theme in the book and in her life’s work. She believes in fairness and integrity, even if in her investigation she discovers truths that go against what she expects or what others expect from her. During many instances, she has to write truths that put her at odds with her friends and colleagues or with powerful, wealthy forces, but she does not compromise the truth.

Tarbell also stresses her belief in hard work, integrity, individual ethics, and sacrifice and the need for everyone to do his or her part for the betterment of society, but that nothing we do individually is the be-all and end-all. The following quote is a good example of her philosophy and one that we should all keep in mind: “I realized early that what a man or woman does is built on what those who have gone before have done, that its real value depends on making the matter in hand a little clearer, a little sounder for those who come after. Nobody begins or ends anything. Each person is a link, weak or strong, in an endless chain. One of our gravest mistakes is persuading ourselves that nobody has passed this way before” (400).

The lasting impression I take away from this book is the hope for the future of our world and for democracy that Ida Tarbell still held after 80 years of witnessing the best and worst the world had to offer.

[Shelley Diamond · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a number of biographies about Ida Tarbell but I wanted to read this autobiography to get her own POV. I was especially interested to find out why she did not support the woman's right to vote, given that so much of what she did was consistent with a feminist philosophy.

This book gives some clues, but she is not explicit about all her reasons. She suggests that she disagrees not with the right to vote, but with the way the suffragettes were going about achieving that goal. She also did not agree with a widely promoted assumption that if women could vote, they would always vote for progressive pacifist ideals. Tarbell had a personality clash with some of the leaders of the suffragette movement, and there is clearly competition amongst the women involved. In the end, while Tarbell was disengaged from the suffragette organizations, she says clearly that while she was not working for it, she was not working against the movement.

Tarbell was involved in so much progressive activism that I imagine she wanted to be free to focus on all her other interests. The suffragettes were completely absorbed by their goal and I suppose she didn't want to get swept up in that.

An interesting section of her autobiography that does not get much coverage in other biographies is her deep involvement with the antiwar movement at the time of World War I. The failure of the League of Nations was a deep disappointment to her.

Tarbell started out wanting to be a scientist of biology; she was fascinated by the microscope. Partially due to the sexism of the time, she was not able to pursue her interests in science very far, and ended up as a journalist. Her most famous work exposed the corporate corruption of Standard Oil. Biographies give lots of detail on that. What this autobiography contributes is how involved her own family was in the oil business and how her familiarity with that industry helped her to figure out what Standard Oil was doing...

[Lynette Caulkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I whole-heartedly second Sandy's review of this book. Ciufi Galeazzi's narration for the audiobook is superb. Don't pass up this fascinating autobiography that reveals much about late-19th and early-20th century America, its politics, and a very interesting woman.

[Shirley Silberman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although well written, unlike most autobiographies where the author delves into emotions and reasons behind actions and beliefs, this autobiography is dispassionate and impersonal; probably what one would expect from a lifelong journalist. It is a detailed historical rendition of pivotal times in late 19th and early 20th centuries, with engaging encounters with many illuminating figures. Ida Tarbell never reveals anything of what it felt like to be a lone female muckraking journalist, surrounded not only by all the males in McClure magazine office, but by all the distinguished gentlemen she met in various industries and government. Nor did she utter one scintilla of emotion or insight to her inner being, her motivations, her pursuits. All in all, this book is a sterilized version of a phenomenon woman in a phenomenon time period writing phenomenal articles about corruption which leaves the reader with a huge impression about that historical period but not one clue about the woman in the midst of it.

[Andrew Washburn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember learning about Ida Tarbell in APUSH and she had not crossed my mind since I grew bored to DKG’s Bully Pulpit where the cast of McClure’s seemed more interesting. I found Ida’s autobiography on Audible and switched focus to her. Not disappointed. Ida is a true American hero, sleuthing around, being a classic 80’s girl (1880’s that is) and generally observing the world with a weariness and pragmatism while hoping better things are going to come. If only more sage and sound voices like hers were mainstream today. Instead the corruption and wild speculation she observed over 100 years ago still plagues our democracy. The floating hope of her story is that history moves in a spiral, a very uneven one, but a path that assuredly moves upward.

[Beth Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something made me want to learn more about Ida Tarbell. The thing I enjoyed most about this book was looking into other peripheral characters that she mentions from here time as a journalist both in the USA and in France.

In her research into Standard Oil she mentions that she can't locate a document so she turns to Adelaide Hesse, a librarian then working at the NY public library. When I took up Adelaide on Wikipedia, it turns out (obviously) that she is not only a librarian but was also a total badass cyclist. "Eventually Hasse's family made its way to southern California where she not only earned the title of "Champion Fast Lady Bicycle Rider of Los Angeles,"[2] but also obtained her first library job. From 1889 to 1895, Hasse worked under the resolute tutelage of Tessa Kelso, the Head Librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL). Hasse and Kelso became lifelong friends in their endeavors to collect, organize, and maintain libraries and their documents as well as making libraries, and the United States, in general, more equitable places for women to work and live."

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read it for a book club. Fascinating woman. It started slow and didn't pick up until page 150. I think I would enjoy a biography more. Ida is too modest

[Louise Melore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much about what she did but not enough of the difficulty of being a working woman during her life. Talented for sure it was it that easy?