Résumé
Résumé de Au fil des jours
Go deeper: the whole of Au fil des jours
About 9 h 50 min to read.À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who love American history, journalism, and the lives of working women will find plenty here. It suits anyone curious about oil, Lincoln, and a career spent finding out what was true.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
What does it take to look a giant in the eye and describe him fairly? Ida Tarbell did it. She grew up in the Pennsylvania oil country, watched a monopoly squeeze her father's neighbors, and later wrote the history of the company behind it.
All in the Day's Work is the memoir she wrote in her eighties. It follows her from a log house in 1857 to Paris, Lincoln, Standard Oil and a wartime committee.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A Childhood Beside the First Oil WellsFree
- 2Privilege Became the Enemy in 1872
- 3College Taught Enthusiasm and Poland Taught Failure
- 4A Temporary Job Became a Career
- 5Paris Gave Her Freedom and a Subject
- 6McClure's Taught Her to Find What Others Missed
- 7The Standard Oil Series Meant Weighing a Powerful Man
- 8After McClure's, She Studied How Industry Might Play Fair
- 9War and Peace Tested Her Faith in People
- 10A Working Life Ends With the Day's Work
Point clé 1 sur 10
A Childhood Beside the First Oil Wells
Ida Tarbell was born on November 5, 1857, in Pennsylvania's Erie County, where her first home was a log house. Her parents had planned to farm in Iowa, but the Panic of 1857 stopped them. Her father, Franklin Tarbell, heard of the new well near Titusville and saw that oil would need tanks. He built one that would not leak, and by 1860 he had a shop at Cherry Run and a shanty for the family.
Ida remembers open oil pits and a derrick at the door. On April 17, 1861, a careless light set off gas at a gusher, and nineteen men burned to death. One burned friend stumbled to the Tarbell door, where her mother nursed him for weeks.
The family moved to a hillside above Rouseville, where Ida roamed the hills for flowers and read Dickens and George Eliot.
Her curiosity and her sense of fair play were formed in the oil fields, long before she wrote a word for print.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Take this summary with you
Send to Kindle downloads the file and opens Amazon's page: drop the file there.
Go deeper: the whole of Au fil des jours
About 9 h 50 min to read.Paperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
Questions about Au fil des jours
What is All in the Day's Work about?
It is Ida Tarbell's memoir of her working life, from a childhood in the Pennsylvania oil region to her years as a magazine writer, her Lincoln research, her Standard Oil history, and her later travels and public service.
Who is Ida Tarbell and why is she remembered?
She was an American journalist who wrote the History of the Standard Oil Company, published in 1904, and several books on Lincoln. Her careful use of documents helped shape investigative reporting in the early twentieth century.
Did Ida Tarbell really know Rockefeller and Henry Rogers?
She saw Rockefeller once, at a Cleveland church in 1903, and never interviewed him. She did meet Henry Rogers many times over two years, and the memoir describes those talks and why they ended.
Is All in the Day's Work easy to read?
Its style is conversational and full of anecdotes, jokes and portraits of real people. Short chapters follow her career in order, so readers can follow each assignment, from Paris to Washington, in plain language.
What is the main message of the book?
Tarbell argues for fair play over privilege and for doing the work that comes to hand with honesty. She urges people to question easy answers and to build patiently on what others have done.
Cite this edition
Tarbell, Ida M. All in the Day's Work. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/all-in-the-days-work.
Tarbell, I. M. (2026). All in the day's work. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/all-in-the-days-work (Original work published 1939)
Tarbell, Ida M. All in the Day's Work. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/all-in-the-days-work.
@book{tarbell2026all,
author = {Tarbell, Ida M.},
title = {All in the Day's Work},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/all-in-the-days-work},
note = {First published 1939}
}
