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.

The Pinkertons

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

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Book Description


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.

Kate Warne

Kate Warne PDF Author: Marissa Moss
Publisher:
ISBN: 1939547334
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 29

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Book Description
A biography of Kate Warne, the first woman detective in the U.S after being hired by the Pinkerton Agency in 1856.

The Pinkerton's Labor Spy

The Pinkerton's Labor Spy PDF Author: Morris Friedman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cripple Creek Strike, Cripple Creek, Colo., 1903-1904
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description


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.

Allan Pinkerton

Allan Pinkerton PDF Author: Judith Pinkerton Josephson
Publisher: Lerner Publications
ISBN: 9780822549239
Category : Detectives
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Original Private Eye.

The Pinkerton Agency

The Pinkerton Agency PDF Author: Charles River Editors
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781795341370
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes contemporary accounts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "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." - Frank Morn, historian The private detective looms large in popular culture, both in the United States and around the world. From Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe and even 1980s' Thomas Magnum, private detectives have been a staple of novels, movies, and television shows for well over a century. The loner for hire, trying to solve a mystery or right a wrong using nothing but their own brain (in Holmes' case), brawn (in Marlowe's case), or boy next door charm (in Magnum's case), is deeply rooted in the collective psyche of generations of men and women. The fact that today's private detective is more likely to be chasing a cheating spouse than tracking down a desperate criminal is beside the point. Holmes, Marlowe, and Magnum owe their existence to the first private detective-and if not the first, certainly in the United States the most famous. The name Allan Pinkerton was for decades synonymous with private detective; indeed, the work "Pinkerton" was generally used for any private detective whether or not they were associated with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. The all-seeing eye that served as the symbol of his company and the slogan-"We Never Sleep"-projected an image of a detective working tirelessly to pursue a desperate criminal and bring them to justice. Through his career, Pinkerton went after bank robbers and railroad theves, both relatively unknown and infamous like Frank and Jesse James. During the Civil War, he was instrumental in preventing the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and ran an extensive intelligence operation against the South. As America industrialized, his detectives were brought into labor disputes by management seeking to break attempts at unions. This last put a stain on Pinkerton's legacy, a legacy he tried to establish by publishing numerous books about his exploits and the exploits of his detectives. A self-promoter as much as a detective, Allan Pinkerton and his story is a quintessentially American one. The Pinkerton Agency: The History of Allan Pinkerton and America's First Major Private Detective Organization looks at the life story of the man who formed the detective agency, and the important milestones in the organization's history. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Pinkertons like never before.

Pinkerton's Sister

Pinkerton's Sister PDF Author: Peter Rushforth
Publisher: MacAdam/Cage Publishing
ISBN: 9781931561990
Category : Characters and characteristics in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 756

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Book Description
A sprawling stream-of-conscious novel set primarily in the head of Alice Pinkerton at the dawn of the twentieth century. Alice isn't yet ready for the new age; she's a vestige of Victorian times, a "madwoman" living on the third floor (not in the attic, she insists) of her family's home. "No one was as close to her as words on a page," Alice muses, and indeed, she relates more to characters from the novels of George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, and Charles Reade than to the people who surround her, especially the thoroughly modern socialite Mrs. Albert Comstock, who represents everything Alice hates. Alice's doctor, who seeks to cure her of her "malady," proclaims, "Imagination is an impediment to progress." For Alice, there's no more chilling sentiment.