Nominee: Ida Tarbell
Nominated by: Regina Jaworski

Ida Tarbell was an amazing woman who took-on huge businesses that were walking over everyone, and a man, John Rockefeller, who did not care how, or who, he destroyed. Big business bosses wanted to control government, and in many, many cases, they did. These leaders of industry felt that government was there for them. She took it upon herself, in spite of her own safety. She did not have a security blanket to catch her if she lost everything. She left a comfortable, safe job to fix an injustice she saw. It would have been much easier for Ida Tarbell to turn the other way and ignore the injustice she saw around her.

Ida Tarbell left a safe job, as a teacher, to take on the job of an investigative reporter, back in the days when it was not a woman’s place. This was an overwhelming task and an extremely unpopular job for anyone.

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