All in the Day's Work.
Inscribed to Malvinia Hoffman
Tarbell, Ida M. All in the Day’s Work. An autobiography. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1939.
8vo.; frontispiece black and white portrait of Tarbell; seven other photographs of Tarbell throughout; lightly tanned at gutters; orange cloth; stamped in black and gilt; orange, black, white, and gold dust-jacket; edgeworn; 3 ½ x 1” chip on lower panel.
First edition. A presentation copy, inscribed on the front endpaper to sculptor Malvinia Hoffman: To Malvina Hoffman/ who not only dares dream/ noble and beautiful things/ but has the disciplined and/ courageous genius to/ make them realities/ from her friend/ Ida M. Tarbell/ June 1939.
Ida M[inerva] Tarbell (1857-1944) was born and raised in Pennsylvania and had the distinction of being one of only five female students at her alma mater, Allegheny College, and the only woman to graduate with the class of 1880. She spent her early career teaching, lecturing, and doing editorial work for the monthly publication, The Chautauquan; she left the United States in 1891 to study at the Sorbonne. In Paris, Tarbell supported herself by writing for Scribner’s. Her articles got the attention of publisher S.S. McClure, who convinced her to return to the States and write for his muckraking magazine, the now infamous McClure’s. Tarbell’s pieces on Napoleon, which were eventually published (A Short Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, New York and London: McClure, Phillips, 1901), gained her international fame and established her firmly in the pantheon of acclaimed journalists of her time. However, it was Tarbell’s exposé on John D. Rockefeller’s monopolization of the oil industry for which she is revered today: The History of the Standard Oil Company (New York: McClure, Phillips, 1904) is hailed as one of the iconic works of the American Progressive movement. It led to dramatic reforms in the oil industry and played a role the Supreme Court’s decision to break up the Standard Oil trust in 1911.
Curiously, Tarbell did not support the work of suffragists as one might expect; though she was approached several times by leaders of the movement such as Carrie Chapman Catt and asked to use her influence and writing talents to garner support for women’s rights, she always refused. Perhaps it was the highly public nature of the suffragist campaign that displeased Tarbell, who in The Business of Being a Woman (New York: Macmillan Co., 1912) concluded that “women had a business assigned by nature and society which was of more importance than public life.” Ultimately, Tarbell believed women had a much greater calling as wives and mothers, and that it was in those roles that women could best hope to improve society, not as enfranchised members of society. After The Business of Being a Woman was published and Tarbell admitted to not supporting women’s suffrage, Jane Addams reportedly remarked, “There is some limitation to Ida Tarbell’s mind.” (http://tarbell.allegheny.edu/treckel.html)
Never a woman to seek fame or celebrity status, Tarbell was reluctant to write an autobiography and waited until she was 82 years-old to do so. The modesty with which she recounts her achievements in All in the Day’s Work is especially remarkable, as the humble title suggests. Tarbell notably disputes the label of “muckraker,” preferring to think of herself as a historian, explaining in one chapter, “I was convinced that in the long run the public [the muckrakers] were trying to stir would weary of vituperation, that if you were to secure permanent results the mind must be convinced” (p. 242). If establishing a permanent ideological legacy was Tarbell’s main goal, few would argue that she failed in that endeavor. Tarbell died of pneumonia in 1944 in a hospital in Connecticut. (NAW III, pp. 428-430; http://tarbell.alleg.edu/)
Malvina Hoffman (1887-1966) studied with Auguste Rodin for sixteen months, and like Tarbell, spent several years in France, keeping company with the likes o
Print Inquire
