structural:expansion, structural:summarization, quality:corruption
Women's suffrage

Steve Weinberg wrote that Ida Tarbell was "a feminist by example, but not by ideology". Feminist scholars viewed Tarbell as an enigma as she seemed to both embrace the movement and act as a critic. While her accomplishments were many, Tarbell also challenged and questioned the logic of women's suffrage. Early in life, Tarbell was exposed to the suffragette movement when her mother hosted meetings in their home. Tarbell was put off by women such as Mary Livermore and Frances Willard who she said never paid attention to her. By contrast, Tarbell noted, the men her father hosted showed interest in her. Tarbell did say that the movement sparked in her a desire to attend college and receive an education.

Starting in 1909, Tarbell wrote more about women and traditional roles. Tarbell was alienated by the more militant aspects of the movement and described it as anti-male. She recommended that women embrace home life and the family, saying they had a "true role as wives, mothers, and homemakers". One biographer, Emily Arnold McCully, believed that her stance on women's issues may have tarnished her long-term legacy. Tarbell felt that "the drive for suffrage" was "a misguided war on men". Former allies among suffragists were dismayed at her change and her speaking to anti-suffragist organizations. Tarbell published the article "Making a Man of Herself" in The American Magazine in 1912, which infuriated her readers and activists. Historian Robert Stinson believed that she was making new public statements about the ambiguity she had lived in her own life, which defined women's roles based upon their nature and saw attempts to push the boundaries into men's realms as unnatural. McCully supposed "that suffrage was a human's rights issue seemed not to occur to her, perhaps because, as a historian, she was much better looking backward than she was at anticipating the future."

Tarbell collected her essays on women and published them in a book called The Business of Being a Woman. The book, which was poorly received, contained tributes to early supporters of women including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Tarbell said of the book: "That title was like a red rag to many of my militant friends. The idea that woman had a business assigned by nature and society which was of more importance than public life disturbed them; even if it was so, they did not want it emphasized". Even Tarbell's own mother, Esther, who was a lifelong suffragette, criticized Ida's position.

Tarbell switched course and embraced suffrage after American women won the right to vote in 1920. She wrote an article for Good Housekeeping in 1924 to dispel the myth that suffrage had failed. She wrote: "twenty million women did vote and should vote." When asked if she believed that a woman would one day be President of the United States, Tarbell pointed out that women had ruled nations in some cases better than kings and pointed to examples of Catherine the Great of Russia, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz of Prussia, Elizabeth I of England and Catherine de' Medici of France.

Tarbell worked to help women who had "no choice but to work, often under horrifying conditions." She wrote about workplace safety and covered the realities of factories where women worked. She became an advocate for Taylorism, a system for scientific management of production, encouraging its use in home economics. She became a member of the Taylor Society. She visited more than fifty-five businesses for the article, "The Golden Rule of Business," to see how "scientific management and Christian values" worked together. She decided it was the best way to protect workers and at the same time maximize profits.

Tarbell was a founding member of the Authors' League in 1914: a collective to support working writers which later became the Authors Guild.

Tarbell's career shifted in 1915 when American Magazine named John Siddall as editor. Tarbell joined the Chautauqua Science and Literary Circuit, a lecture and entertainment tour filled with public speakers, singers and other acts such as trained dogs and yodelers. Before the tour, Tarbell trained for public speaking with Frank Sargent of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. The tour schedule was brutal. Tarbell said, "...I signed up for a seven weeks' circuit, forty-nine days in forty-nine different places". Tarbell was exhausted at the end but went on to sign up for more over the next few years. Tarbell lectured throughout the United States on subjects from the evils of war, peace, politics, trusts, tariffs, labor and labors of women.