Inventing the Pinkertons; or, Spies, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs

Inventing the Pinkertons; or, Spies, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs PDF Author: S. Paul O'Hara
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421420570
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
The fascinating story of the most notorious detective agency in US history. Between 1865 and 1937, Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency was at the center of countless conflicts between capital and labor, bandits and railroads, and strikers and state power. Some believed that the detectives were protecting society from dangerous criminal conspiracies; others thought that armed Pinkertons were capital’s tool to crush worker dissent. Yet the image of the Pinkerton detective also inspired romantic and sensationalist novels, reflected shifting ideals of Victorian manhood, and embodied a particular kind of rough frontier justice. Inventing the Pinkertons examines the evolution of the agency as a pivotal institution in the cultural history of American monopoly capitalism. Historian S. Paul O’Hara intertwines political, social, and cultural history to reveal how Scottish-born founder Allan Pinkerton insinuated his way to power and influence as a purveyor of valuable (and often wildly wrong) intelligence in the Union cause. During Reconstruction, Pinkerton turned his agents into icons of law and order in the Wild West. Finally, he transformed his firm into a for-rent private army in the war of industry against labor. Having begun life as peddlers of information and guardians of mail bags, the Pinkertons became armed mercenaries, protecting scabs and corporate property from angry strikers. O’Hara argues that American capitalists used the Pinkertons to enforce new structures of economic and political order. Yet the infamy of the Pinkerton agent also gave critics and working communities a villain against which to frame their resistance to the new industrial order. Ultimately, Inventing the Pinkertons is a gripping look at how the histories of American capitalism, industrial folklore, and the nation-state converged.

Inventing the Pinkertons; or, Spies, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs

Inventing the Pinkertons; or, Spies, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs PDF Author: S. Paul O'Hara
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421420570
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Get Book Here

Book Description
The fascinating story of the most notorious detective agency in US history. Between 1865 and 1937, Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency was at the center of countless conflicts between capital and labor, bandits and railroads, and strikers and state power. Some believed that the detectives were protecting society from dangerous criminal conspiracies; others thought that armed Pinkertons were capital’s tool to crush worker dissent. Yet the image of the Pinkerton detective also inspired romantic and sensationalist novels, reflected shifting ideals of Victorian manhood, and embodied a particular kind of rough frontier justice. Inventing the Pinkertons examines the evolution of the agency as a pivotal institution in the cultural history of American monopoly capitalism. Historian S. Paul O’Hara intertwines political, social, and cultural history to reveal how Scottish-born founder Allan Pinkerton insinuated his way to power and influence as a purveyor of valuable (and often wildly wrong) intelligence in the Union cause. During Reconstruction, Pinkerton turned his agents into icons of law and order in the Wild West. Finally, he transformed his firm into a for-rent private army in the war of industry against labor. Having begun life as peddlers of information and guardians of mail bags, the Pinkertons became armed mercenaries, protecting scabs and corporate property from angry strikers. O’Hara argues that American capitalists used the Pinkertons to enforce new structures of economic and political order. Yet the infamy of the Pinkerton agent also gave critics and working communities a villain against which to frame their resistance to the new industrial order. Ultimately, Inventing the Pinkertons is a gripping look at how the histories of American capitalism, industrial folklore, and the nation-state converged.

Pinkerton's Secret

Pinkerton's Secret PDF Author: Eric Lerner
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805082784
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
A provocative love story, conjuring up the passionate life of the Civil War era's legendary private eye, his dramatic exploits, and his clandestine affair with his partner, the first female detective.

Pinkertons, Prostitutes and Spies

Pinkertons, Prostitutes and Spies PDF Author: John Stewart
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476637512
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Hattie Lawton was a young Pinkerton detective who with her partner, Timothy Webster, spied for the U.S. Secret Service during the Civil War. Working in Richmond, the two posed as husband and wife. A dazzling blonde from New York and a handsome Englishman, both with checkered pasts, they were matched in charm, cunning, duplicity and boldness. Betrayed by their own spymaster, Allan Pinkerton, they fell into the hands of the dictator of Richmond, the notorious General John H. "Hog" Winder. This lively history, scrupulously researched from all available sources, corrects the record on many points and definitively answers the long-standing question of Hattie Lawton's true identity.

Reginald McKenna

Reginald McKenna PDF Author: Martin Farr
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135776598
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
Reginald McKenna has never been the subject of scholarly attention. This was partly due to his own preference for appearing at the periphery of events even when ostensibly at the centre, and the absence of a significant collection of private papers. This new book redresses the neglect of this major statesmen and financier partly through the natural advance of historical research, and partly by the discoveries of missing archival material. McKenna's role is now illuminated by his own reflections, and by the correspondence of friends and colleagues, including Asquith, Churchill, Keynes, Baldwin, Bonar Law, MacDonald, and Chamberlain. McKenna's presence at the hub of political life in the first half of the century is now clear: in the radical Liberal governments of 1905–16, where he acted as a lightning conductor for the party; during the war, where he served as the Prime Minister's deputy and the principal voice for restraint in the conduct of the war; and as chairman of the world's largest bank, where until his death in office aged eighty, he prompted progressive policies to deal with the issues of war debt, trade, mass unemployment, and the return to gold.

The Pinks

The Pinks PDF Author: Chris Enss
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493030663
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
The true story of Kate Warne and the other women who served as Pinkertons, fulfilling the adage, “Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History.” Most students of the Old West and American law enforcement history know the story of the notorious and ruthless Pinkerton Detective Agency and the legends behind their role in establishing the Secret Service and tangling with Old West Outlaws. But the true story of Kate Warne, an operative of the Pinkerton Agency and the first woman detective in America—and the stories of the other women who served their country as part of the storied crew of crime fighters—are not well known. For the first time, the stories of these intrepid women are collected here and richly illustrated throughout with numerous historical photographs. From Kate Warne’s probable affair with Allan Pinkerton, and her part in saving the life of Abraham Lincoln in 1861 to the lives and careers of the other women who broke out of the Cult of True Womanhood in pursuit of justice, these true stories add another dimension to our understanding of American history.

The Hour of Peril

The Hour of Peril PDF Author: Daniel Stashower
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ISBN: 1250023327
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
"It's history that reads like a race-against-the-clock thriller." —Harlan Coben Daniel Stashower, the two-time Edgar award–winning author of The Beautiful Cigar Girl, uncovers the riveting true story of the "Baltimore Plot," an audacious conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln on the eve of the Civil War in THE HOUR OF PERIL. In February of 1861, just days before he assumed the presidency, Abraham Lincoln faced a "clear and fully-matured" threat of assassination as he traveled by train from Springfield to Washington for his inauguration. Over a period of thirteen days the legendary detective Allan Pinkerton worked feverishly to detect and thwart the plot, assisted by a captivating young widow named Kate Warne, America's first female private eye. As Lincoln's train rolled inexorably toward "the seat of danger," Pinkerton struggled to unravel the ever-changing details of the murder plot, even as he contended with the intractability of Lincoln and his advisors, who refused to believe that the danger was real. With time running out Pinkerton took a desperate gamble, staking Lincoln's life—and the future of the nation—on a "perilous feint" that seemed to offer the only chance that Lincoln would survive to become president. Shrouded in secrecy—and, later, mired in controversy—the story of the "Baltimore Plot" is one of the great untold tales of the Civil War era, and Stashower has crafted this spellbinding historical narrative with the pace and urgency of a race-against-the-clock thriller. A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2013 Winner of the 2014 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Winner of the 2013 Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction Winner of the 2014 Anthony Award for Best Critical or Non-fiction Work Winner of the 2014 Macavity Award for Best Nonfiction

Call in Pinkerton's

Call in Pinkerton's PDF Author: David Ricardo Williams
Publisher: Dundurn
ISBN: 1550023063
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Soon after Allan Pinkerton established his legendary detective agency in the United States, Canadians began seeking their services. Call in Pinkerton's is the history of the agency's work on behalf of Canadian governments and police forces. During the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Pinkerton's operatives hunted legendary train robber Bill Miner in the woods of British Columbia, infiltrated German spy rings during World War I, and helped future prime minister John A. Macdonald to fend off the Fenian raids. They tracked down the Reno Brothers in Windsor, Ontario, and investigated labour unrest in Hamilton. The agency's detectives countered crimes all over Canada, particularly in the West and British Columbia. Pinkerton's activities went as far north as the Yukon, where fears were growing of an imminent invasion by a force of Americans from Alaska. Call in Pinkerton's is the first book to chronicle the agency's work on behalf of Canadian governments and police forces. This entertaining book provides accounts of actual Pinkerton's investigations while detailing the day-to-day activities of a private detective at work. Call in Pinkerton's is a fascinating read for anyone with an interest in crime and espionage.

The Pinkertons

The Pinkertons PDF Author: James David Horan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780709116806
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description


Lincoln's Spies

Lincoln's Spies PDF Author: Douglas Waller
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1501126857
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
This major addition to the history of the Civil War is a “fast-paced, fact-rich account” (The Wall Street Journal) offering a detailed look at President Abraham Lincoln’s use of clandestine services and the secret battles waged by Union spies and agents to save the nation—filled with espionage, sabotage, and intrigue. Veteran CIA correspondent Douglas Waller delivers a riveting account of the heroes and misfits who carried out a shadow war of espionage and covert operations behind the Confederate battlefields. Lincoln’s Spies follows four agents from the North—three men and one woman—who informed Lincoln’s generals on the enemy positions for crucial battles and busted up clandestine Rebel networks. Famed detective Allan Pinkerton mounted a successful covert operation to slip Lincoln through Baltimore before his inauguration after he learns of an assassination attempt from his agents working undercover as Confederate soldiers. But he proved less than competent as General George McClellan’s spymaster, delivering faulty intelligence reports that overestimated Confederate strength. George Sharpe, an erudite New York lawyer, succeeded Pinkerton as spymaster for the Union’s Army of the Potomac. Sharpe deployed secret agents throughout the South, planted misinformation with Robert E. Lee’s army, and outpaced anything the enemy could field. Elizabeth Van Lew, a Virginia heiress who hated slavery and disapproved of secession, was one of Sharpe’s most successful agents. She ran a Union spy ring in Richmond out of her mansion with dozens of agents feeding her military and political secrets that she funneled to General Ulysses S. Grant as his army closed in on the Confederate capital. Van Lew became one of the unsung heroes of history. Lafayette Baker was a handsome Union officer with a controversial past, whose agents clashed with Pinkerton’s operatives. He assembled a retinue of disreputable spies, thieves, and prostitutes to root out traitors in Washington, DC. But he failed at his most important mission: uncovering the threat to Lincoln from John Wilkes Booth and his gang. Behind these operatives was Abraham Lincoln, one of our greatest presidents, who was an avid consumer of intelligence and a ruthless aficionado of clandestine warfare, willing to take whatever chances necessary to win the war. Lincoln’s Spies is a “meticulous chronicle of all facets of Lincoln’s war effort” (Kirkus Reviews) and an excellent choice for those wanting “a cracking good tale” (Publishers Weekly) of espionage in the Civil War.

Pinkerton's Great Detective

Pinkerton's Great Detective PDF Author: Beau Riffenburgh
Publisher: Viking Adult
ISBN: 9780670025466
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
The story of the legendary detective credited with the defeat of the Molly Maguires gang and Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch offers insight into his innovative "cloak-and-dagger" methods and his investigation into the Western Federation of Mines for the assassination of Idaho's former governor. 25,000 first printing.