Publication of 'The Hunt for the Money Trust'

In May 1913, Ida Tarbell published "The Hunt for the Money Trust," an investigative piece examining the concentration of financial power among a small number of powerful Wall Street banking interests. The essay appeared during a period of intense congressional scrutiny of American finance, including the Pujo Committee investigation into the so-called "money trust" of interlocking bank directorates.

This publication represented a natural extension of Tarbell's earlier work on industrial monopoly into the realm of finance capital. Having spent over a decade investigating how concentrated economic power operated and how it affected ordinary Americans, she applied the same rigorous investigative method to the banking sector, a subject of intense public concern in the years leading up to the creation of the Federal Reserve System in December 1913.

The essay's publication reinforced Tarbell's standing as one of the preeminent investigative journalists of her generation, someone whose scrutiny extended across the full range of concentrated economic power in Progressive Era America—from oil to tariffs to finance. It remains a valuable primary source for historians studying the intellectual and journalistic climate that produced major financial reforms in the early twentieth century, including the Federal Reserve Act.