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The Pinkerton National Detective Agency was a security guard and detective agency, established in the United States, in 1850 by Allan Pinkerton. Pinkerton had become famous when he foiled a plot to assassinate President-Elect Abraham Lincoln. Pinkerton's agents performed services which ranged from the equivalent of both a private military contractor to that of security guards. During the height of its existence, the Pinkerton Detective Agency had more agents than the standing army of the United States of America, causing the state of Ohio to outlaw the agency, due to the possibility of its being hired out as a "private army" or militia.
During the labor unrest of the late 19th century, businessmen hired Pinkerton guards to keep strikers and suspected unionists out of their factories. The most notorious example of this was the Homestead Strike of 1892, where Pinkerton agents ended up killing several people by enforcing the strikebreaking measures of Henry Clay Frick, (acting on behalf of Andrew Carnegie, who was abroad). The agency's logo, an eye embellished with the words "We Never Sleep" inspired the term "private eye." The "Pinkertons" were also used as guards in coal, iron and lumber disputes in Illinois, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania, as well as the railroad strikes of 1877.
The company now operates as a division of Securitas.
Origins
In the 1850s, Allan Pinkerton partnered with Chicago attorney Edward Rucker, in forming the North-Western Police Agency, later known as the Pinkerton Agency. p. 842 p. 63 p. 202
Historian Frank Morn writes: "By the mid-1850s a few businessmen saw the need for greater control over their employees; their solution was to sponsor a private detective system. In February 1855, Allan Pinkerton, after consulting with six midwestern railroads, created such an agency in Chicago." p. 18
Government work
In 1871, Congress appropriated $50,000, to the newly created Department of Justice (DOJ) to use to form a suborganization devoted to "the detection and prosecution of those guilty of violating federal law." The amount was insufficient for the DOJ to fashion an integral investigating unit itself, so the DOJ contracted out the services to the private sector, with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
Molly Maguires
In the 1870s, Franklin B. Gowen, then president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad hired the agency to investigate the labor unions in the company's mines. A Pinkerton agent, James McParlan, infiltrated the Molly Maguires using the alias James McKenna, leading to the downfall of this secret organization. The incident was the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle's The Valley of Fear, one of the few Sherlock Holmes stories which focus on the exploits of one of the characters in the story instead of Holmes himself. A Pinkerton agent also appears in a small role in The Adventure of the Red Circle, another Holmes story.
Homestead Strike
During the Homestead Strike, the arrival, on July 6 1892, of a force of 300 Pinkerton detectives from New York and Chicago resulted in a fight in which about 11 men were killed, and to restore order two brigades of the state militia were called out.
Steunenberg murder and trial
Teamster agent Harry Orchard was arrested by a Pinkerton agent for killing Governer Frank Steunenberg of Idaho, and received a sentence of life imprisonment in a nationally publicized trial.
Outlaws and competition
Pinkerton agents were hired to track western outlaws Jesse James, the Reno brothers, and the Wild Bunch (including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid).
G.H. Thiel, a former Pinkerton employee, established the Thiel Detective Service Company in St. Louis, Missouri, a competitor to the Pinkerton agency. The Thiel company operated in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
The William J. Burns Detective Agency was founded about 1910. In July 2003 Securitas AB acquired the United States companies of Pinkerton and Burns to make it Securitas Security Services USA, Inc., one of the largest security companies in the world.
In popular culture
In 1892 there was a popular song about the Pinkertons: "Hear the poor orphans tell their sad story/Father was killed by the Pinkerton men." p. 44
In the 2005 movie The Legend of Zorro, Pinkerton agents goad Zorro's wife to divorce him and become one of their agents in order to investigate a secret society threatening to derail California's 1850 admission to the Union.
The Pinkerton Agency is referred to in a handful of episodes in Seasons 1 and 2 of the HBO series Deadwood.
Corporate-hired Pinkerton personnel assault early 20th century union organizers in an early scene of the 1993 movie Hoffa.
Pinkerton toughs occasionally appear as secondary characters throughout Harry Turtledove's series of Great War and American Empire fictional novels.
In Sergio Sollima's Faccia a faccia (1967), William Berger portrays a real-life Pinkerton agent Charlie Siringo.
Pinkerton men are frequently referred to in the 1980 film about Jesse James and his gang, The Long Riders.
Pinkerton's also appears in the early Ian Fleming James Bond novels
In "Mean Streets" 1997 by Terrance Dicks, Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej poses as agents of the "Interplanetary Pinkerton Bureau" in order to investigate Megacity.
In the 2001 movie American Outlaws, Allan Pinkerton is portrayed by actor Timothy Dalton. The Pinkerton Agency is shown trying to capture outlaw Jesse James (portrayed by Colin Farrell).
See also
References
External links
Further reading
1850 establishments | Private detectives and investigators
פינקרטון | Pinkerton National Detective Agency | Agência Nacional de Detetives Pinkerton | Pinkerton
"Pinkerton National Detective Agency"