The Muckrakers: Ida Tarbell Takes on Big Business

The Muckrakers: Ida Tarbell Takes on Big Business — page 5
had more money in it than he had ever dreamed of making He did not plan to drill a well himself Rather he would profit from building tanks in which well owners could store the oil gushing up from the ground In 1860 he moved his family to the northwestern Pennsylvania settlement of Rouseville Business was soon booming but young Ida hated her surroundings which consisted largely of oil derricks and sunken pits where unproductive wells had been abandoned As she later wrote No industry of man in its early days has ever been more destructive of beauty order decency than the production of petroleum If oil was found if the well flowed every tree every shrub every bit of grass in the vicinity was coated with black grease and left to die Despite the ugly landscape Ida's family continued prospering Soon they were able to move into a home on a hill above the town where the view was a wooded hillside not oil derricks Ida enjoyed exploring these woods until 1870 when her family moved to the nearby town of Titusville Eventually as iron tanks replaced the wooden ones Franklin made he turned to the wells and became an oil producer