- Allan Pinkerton
Allan Pinkerton (25 August 1819 – 1 July 1884) was a Scottish
detective and spy, best known for creating thePinkerton Agency , the first detective agency of the United States.Early life, Career and Emigration
Pinkerton was born in
Glasgow ,Scotland , to William Pinkerton and his wife Isabell, in 1819. Fact|date=May 2008 The location of the house where he was born is now occupied by theGlasgow Central Mosque . A cooper by trade, he was active in the British Chartist movement as a young man. Pinkerton married Joan Carfrae (a singer) secretly before moving to America. Disillusioned by the failure to winuniversal suffrage , Pinkerton emigrated to theUnited States in 1842, at the age of 23.In 1849 Pinkerton was appointed as the first detective in
Chicago . In the 1850s, he partnered with Chicago attorney Edward Rucker in forming the North-Western Police Agency, later known as thePinkerton National Detective Agency which is still running (but has been renamed) as a subsidiary ofSecuritas . Pinkerton's business insignia was a wide open eye with the caption "We never sleep." As the United States expanded in territory, rail transportation increased. Pinkerton's agency solved a series of train robberies during the 1850s, bringing Pinkerton first into contact with George McClellan andAbraham Lincoln .American Civil War
Prior to his service with the
Union Army , he developed several investigative techniques that are still used today. Among them are "shadowing" (surveillance of a suspect) and "assuming a role" (undercover work). Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Pinkerton served as head of theUnion Intelligence Service in 1861–62 and foiled an alleged assassination plot inBaltimore, Maryland , while guardingAbraham Lincoln on his way to his inauguration. His agents often worked undercover as Confederate soldiers and sympathizers, in an effort to gather military intelligence. Pinkerton served several undercover missions under the alias of Major E.J. Allen. Pinkerton was succeeded as Intelligence Service chief byLafayette Baker . The Intelligence Service was the forerunner of the U.S. Secret Service.Postbellum
Following Pinkerton's service with the
Union Army , he continued his pursuit of train robbers, such as theReno Gang and also sought to oppose labor unions. In 1872, the Spanish Government hired Pinkerton to help suppress a revolution inCuba which intended to end slavery and give citizens the right to vote. [Allan Pinkerton: The First Private Eye. James Mackay Review author [s] :Stephen H. Norwood , The Journal of American History, Vol. 85, No. 3. (Dec., 1998), pp. 1106-1107.]In late June 1884 he slipped on a pavement in
Chicago , biting his tongue as he did so. He didn't seek treatment and the tongue became infected, leading to his death on 1 July 1884. At the time of his death, he was working on a system that would centralize all criminal identification records, a database now maintained by theFederal Bureau of Investigation .Pinkerton is buried inGraceland Cemetery , Chicago. He is a member of theMilitary Intelligence Hall of Fame .Legacy
After his death, the agency continued to operate and soon became a major force against the young
labor movement developing in the United States andCanada . This effort tarnished the image of the Pinkertons for years. They were involved in numerous activities against labor during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including:* The
Homestead Strike (1891)
* ThePullman Strike (1894)
* TheWild Bunch Gang (1896)
* TheLudlow Massacre (1914)
* TheLa Follette Committee (1933-1937)Many labor sympathizers accused the Pinkertons of inciting riots in order to discredit unions and justify police crackdowns.Fact|date=February 2007 The Pinkertons' reputation was harmed by their protection of replacement workers ("scabs") and the business property of the major industrialists, including
Andrew Carnegie .Pinkerton was so famous that for decades after his death, his surname was a
slang term for a private eye. Due to the Pinkerton Agency's conflicts with labor unions, the word "Pinkerton" remains in the vocabulary of labor organizers and union members as a derogatory reference to authority figures who side with management.Pinkerton features in the last chapters of
David Robertson 's historical fiction novel "Booth". Pinkerton is portrayed as having Booth's diary reproduced so damnable evidence against notable legislators and formerVice-President and then currentPresident of the United States Andrew Johnson , was eradicated. He then swore the forger,John H. Surratt , to secrecy.Writings
Pinkerton produced numerous popular detective books, ostensibly based on his own exploits and those of his agents. Some were published after his death, and they are considered to have been more motivated by a desire to promote his detective agency than a literary endeavour. Most historians believe that Allan Pinkerton hired
ghostwriter s, but the books nonetheless bear his name and no doubt reflect his own views.* (1866) "Allan Pinkerton's Unpublished Story of the First Attempt on the Life of Abraham Lincoln"
* (1868) "History and Evidence of the Passage of Abraham Lincoln from Harrisburg, Pa., to Washington, D.C., on the Twenty-second and Twenty-third of February, 1861"
* (1874) "The Expressman and the Detective" (available online [http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=wright2;idno=wright2-1908 here] )
* (1875) "Claude Melnotte as a Detective, and Other Stories"
* (1875) "The Detective and the Somnambulist; The Murderer and the Fortune Teller" (available online [http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=wright2;idno=wright2-1907 here] )
* (1875) "Claude Melnotte as a Detective" (available online [http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=wright2;idno=wright2-1906 here] )
* (1877) "The Mollie Maguires and the Detectives"
* (1878) "Strikers, Communists, Tramps and Detectives"
* (1879) "Mississippi Outlaws and the Detectives; Don Pedro and the Detectives; Poisoner and the Detectives"
* (1879) "Criminal Reminiscences and Detective Sketches"
* (1880) "Bucholz and the Detectives" [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20497 available at Project Gutenberg]
* (1884) "The Spy of the Rebellion"
* (1885) "A Double Life and the Detectives"
* (1886) "The Railroad Forger and the Detectives"
* (1886) "A Life for a Life; or, The Detective's Triumph"
* (188?) "Professional Thieves and the Detectives"
* (1892) "Cornered at Last: A Detective Story"
* (1900) "Thirty Years a Detective"See also
*
American Civil War spies References
External links
* [http://www1.lib.uchicago.edu/e/index.php3 University of Chicago's library database]
* [http://main.library.utoronto.ca/ University of Toronto's library database]
* [http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters2/pinkerton/ Detailed profile of Pinkerton]
* [http://heritage.scotsman.com/greatscots.cfm?id=441632005 Allan Pinkerton, in The Scotsman's Great Scots series]
* [http://americanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa062002a.htm A Brief History of the Pinkertons]
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