The Progressive Era started around 1890 and ended in 1920. Progressivism is the term for the variety of responses to the economic and social problems rapid industrialization brought to America. Progressivism began as a social movement and grew into a political movement. Ida Tarbell began her McClure's series entitled "History of the Standard Oil Company." She exposed the corrupt business practices behind John Rockefeller's rise to become a national power. It turns out that Tarbell's motives may have been personal also; her father had been driven out of business by Rockefeller’s monopoly. Her stories about Standard Oil began in the November 1902 issue of McClure's and lasted for nineteen issues. She was thorough in detailing Rockefeller's interest in oil and how the …show more content…
Tarbell developed investigative reporting techniques, such as digging into public documents all throughout the country. Alone, these documents provided instances of Standard Oil's aggressive tactics against rivals, like railroad companies and others that got in its way. Exposing the Standard Oil Company was the first corporate coverage of its kind, and it attacked the business operations of Rockefeller, who was the best-known businessman in the country at the time. Eventually Standard Oil Company was brought to the Supreme Court for being found of guilty of monopolizing the petroleum industry through a series of abusive and anticompetitive actions. The court's ruling was to divide Standard Oil into several geographically separate and eventually competing companies.
Perhaps no other muckraker caused as great a stir as Upton Sinclair. An acknowledged Socialist, Sinclair hoped to shed light on the horrible effects of