The Pinkerton National Detective Agency was a private U.S. security guard and detective agency established by Allan
Pinkerton in 1850. Pinkerton had become famous when he foiled a plot to assassinate
president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who later
hired Pinkerton agents for his personal security during the Civil War (although at
the time of Lincoln's assassination, his security was no longer handled by Pinkerton, but by U.S. Army personnel). Pinkerton's agents performed services ranging from security guards to private
military contracting work. During its height, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency employed more agents than the standing army
of the United States of America, causing the state of Ohio to outlaw the agency due to fears it could be hired out as a private army or militia.
During the labor unrest of the late 19th century, businessmen hired Pinkerton agents to infiltrate unions, and guards to keep strikers and suspected
unionists out of factories. The most notorious example was the Homestead Strike of 1892, when Pinkerton agents killed several people in
a battle with strikers, who also killed several agents, while 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."[citation needed] 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 the Swedish security company Securitas AB.
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.[1][2][3]
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."[4]
Government work
In 1871, Congress appropriated $50,000 to the new Department of
Justice (DOJ) 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, so the DOJ contracted out the services
to the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.[5]
However, since passage of the Anti-Pinkerton Act in 1893, federal law has stated
that an "individual employed by the Pinkerton Detective Agency, or similar organization, may not be employed by the Government of
the United States or the government of the District of Columbia."[6]
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
Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of
Fear. A Pinkerton agent also appears in a small role in The
Adventure of the Red Circle, another Holmes story.
Pinkerton men leaving a barge after their surrender during the Homestead Strike
Homestead Strike
-
During the Homestead Strike, the arrival, on July 6
1892, of a force of 300 Pinkerton detectives from New York and Chicago, who were called in by Henry Clay Frick to protect the mill and replacement workers
("scabs"), 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
-
Harry Orchard was arrested by the Idaho police and confessed to Pinkerton agent
James McParland that he assassinated Governor 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.
Due to its conflicts with labor unions, the word Pinkerton continues to be
associated by labor organizers and union members with strikebreaking.[7] Pinkerton's, however, moved away from labour spying following revelations publicized by the
La Follette Committee hearings in 1937.[8] Pinkerton's criminal detection work also suffered from the police modernization
movement, which saw the rise of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and
the bolstering of detective branches and resources of the public police. Without the industrial espionage against labor and
criminal investigation work on which Pinkerton's thrived for decades, the company became increasingly involved in protection
services, and in the 1960s, even the word "Detective" disappeared from the agency's letterhead.[9] In July 2003, Pinkerton's was acquired along with longtime rival, the
William J. Burns Detective Agency (founded in 1910), by Securitas AB to create 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."[10]
- Dashiell Hammett, pioneer of the hard-boiled
detective novel, was an ex-detective for Pinkerton and adapted some of the experiences he had while employed there in his
stories and novels.
- 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 and several agents are featured in the HBO series Deadwood. Pinkertons are often referred to ominously or with contempt by several of the
show's characters. In season 1, episode 3, Brom Garrett threatens action by the Pinkertons towards Swearengen, set in 1876. In
season 2, the tutor for Alma Garrett's ward is discovered to be an undercover operative for the agency. In season 3, originally
aired in 2006, the Pinkertons were hired by the character of George Hearst.
- Corporate-hired Pinkerton personnel assault early 20th century union organizers in an early scene of the 1992 movie
Hoffa.
- Pinkerton toughs occasionally appear as secondary characters throughout Harry
Turtledove's series of Great War and American Empire fictional novels.
- Pinkerton agents appear on the trail of four heroines in the 1994 movie Bad Girls.
- Pinkerton men are frequently referred to in the 1980 film about Jesse James and his gang, The Long Riders.
- Pinkertons also appear in the early Ian Fleming James
Bond novels. Felix Leiter joins Pinkertons after leaving the CIA.
- In The Dante Club a Pinkerton Detective is hired to investigate people's
feelings about Dante's literature.
- The Pinkerton Detective Agency feature in Malcolm Pryce's "Don't cry for me
Aberystwyth."
- Elijah Wood claims that friends sometimes call him "Pinkerton" in private.
- Rock band Weezer has released an album named "Pinkerton," although the album is
named for the character in Madama Butterfly.
- The Hollywood western 3:10 to Yuma and its 2007 remake feature Pinkerton agents escorting an armed stagecoach filled with bank notes
through Arizona. Pinkerton agents are seen throughout the 2007 version.
See also
References
- ^ Foner, Eric; John Arthur Garraty, eds. (Oct 21, 1991). The Reader's Companion to American
History. Houghton Mifflin Books. ISBN 0-395-51372-3. p.
842
- ^ Robinson, Charles M (2005). American Frontier Lawmen 1850-1930. Osprey Publishing. ISBN
1-84176-575-9. p.
63
- ^ Horan, James David; Howard Swiggett (1951). The Pinkerton Story. Putnam. p.
202
- ^ Morn, Frank (1982). The Eye That Never Sleeps: A History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-32086-0.
p. 18
- ^ Churchill, Ward (Spring 2004). "From the Pinkertons to the PATRIOT Act: The Trajectory of Political Policing in the United States,
1870 to the Present". The New Centennial Review 4 (1): 1-72.
- ^ 5 U.S. Code 3108; Public Law 89-554, 80 Stat. 416 (1966); ch. 208 (5th par.
under "Public Buildings"), 27 Stat. 591 (1893). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in U.S. ex rel.
Weinberger v. Equifax, 557 F.2d 456 (5th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1035 (1978), held that "The purpose
of the Act and the legislative history reveal that an organization was 'similar' to the Pinkerton Detective Agency only if it
offered for hire mercenary, quasi-military forces as strikebreakers and armed guards. It had the secondary effect of deterring
any other organization from providing such services lest it be branded a 'similar organization.'" 557 F.2d at 462; see
also GAO Decision B-298370;
B-298490, Brian X. Scott (Aug. 18, 2006)..
- ^ Williams, David Ricardo
(1998). Call in Pinkerton's: American Detectives at Work for Canada. Toronto: Dundurn Press. ISBN
1-550023-06-3.
- ^ Morn,
Frank (1982). The Eye That Never Sleeps: A History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press. ISBN 0-253-32086-0.
p. 188-189
- ^ Morn,
Frank (1982). The Eye That Never Sleeps: A History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press. ISBN 0-253-32086-0.
p. 192.
- ^ Powers, Richard Gid (Oct 19, 2004). Broken: The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the
FBI. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-684-83371-9. p.
44
External links
Further reading
- Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri (Oct 1,
2003). Cloak and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence. Yale University Press. ISBN
0-300-10159-7.
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