Allan Pinkerton
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Allan Pinkerton (August 25, 1819 – July 1, 1884) was a U.S. detective and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton Agency, the first detective agency.
Pinkerton was born in Glasgow, Scotland, to William Pinkerton and his wife Isabell, in 1819. The location of the house where he was born is now occupied by the Glasgow Central Mosque. A cooper by trade, he was active in the Chartist movement as a young man. Disillusioned by the failure to win universal suffrage, Pinkerton emigrated to the United 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 the Pinkerton Agency. Pinkerton's business insignia was a wide open eye with the caption "We Never Sleep." The sign is the basis for one hypothesized origin of the nickname "private eye". 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 and Abraham Lincoln.
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 the Union Intelligence Service in 1861–62 and foiled an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland, while guarding Abraham 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 by Lafayette Baker.
Following Pinkerton's service with the Union Army, he continued his pursuit of train robbers and also sought to stem the infiltration of secret terrorist labor organizations. Pinkerton died in Chicago, Illinois on July 1, 1884 as a result of infection after biting his tongue when he slipped on a sidewalk. At the time of his death, he was working on a system that would centralize all criminal identification records, a database now maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Pinkerton is a member of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.
At his death, the agency continued to operate and would soon become a major force against the young labor movement developing in the United States and Canada. This effort against labor tarnished the image of the Pinkertons for years. They always maintained the high moral standards established by their founder, but many people began to view them as an arm of big business.[neutrality disputed] They were involved in numerous activities against labor and during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including:
- The Pullman Strike (1894)
- The Wild Bunch Gang (1896)
- The Ludlow Massacre (1914)
- The LaFollette Committee (1933-1937)
Many labor sympathizers accused the Pinkertons of inciting riots as a means of keeping employment or for other nefarious purposes.[citation needed] The Pinkertons' reputation was harmed by the organization's protection of replacement workers and business property of the major industrialists, including Andrew Carnegie.
Allan Pinkerton is buried in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago.
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[edit] In popular culture
- He was so famous that for decades after his death, the word "Pinkerton" was a slang term for a private eye.
- In the movie American Outlaws (2001), Allan Pinkerton was played by Timothy Dalton.
- In the movie Frank & Jesse (1993), Allan Pinkerton was played by William Atherton
- The HBO drama series Deadwood features references to "the Pinkertons", and although this is never elaborated on, they are regarded as a menacing force whose summoning is used as a threat.
- 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 (in the opinion of the union).
- Pinkerton is a pivitol character in the four books of "The Starbuck Chronicles" by Bernard Cornwell. Cornwell paints a very unsympathetic portrait of Pinkerton, portraying him as dithering and too willing to believe inflated claims of Confederate strength. James Starbuck, older brother of Nate Starbuck, the main character of the novels, is Pinkerton's Chief of Staff. Nate Starbuck, a "copperhead" (a Northern fighting for the South) is for a time unofficially attached to Pinkerton's staff when it is believed that he has defected to the North. In fact, he was sent on a specific mission to provide Pinkerton with false information on Confederate strength.
[edit] Books by Allan Pinkerton
Pinkerton produced a plethora of 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 ghost writers, but the books nonetheless bear his name and no doubt reflect his own views.
- The Expressman and the Detective (1874) (available online here)
- The Detective and the Somnambulist; The Murderer and the Fortune Teller (1875) (available online here)
- Professional Thieves and the Detectives (188?)
- The Railroad Forger and the Detectives (1886)
- Claude Melnotte as a Detective, and Other Stories (1875)
- The Mollie Maguires and the Detectives (1877)
- Criminal Reminiscences and Detective Sketches
- Cornered at Last: A Detective Story (1892)
- Thirty Years a Detective (1900)
- A Double Life and the Detectives (1885)
- The Spy of the Rebellion (1884)
- Strikers, Communists, Tramps and Detectives (1878)
- Claude Melnotte as a Detective (1875) (available online here)
- A Life for a Life; or, The Detective's Triumph (1886)
- Allan Pinkerton's Unpublished Story of the First Attempt on the Life of Abraham Lincoln (1866)
- Bucholz and the Detectives (1880)
- 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 (1868)
- Mississippi Outlaws and the Detectives; Don Pedro and the Detectives; Poisoner and the Detectives (1879)
