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[[File:Pinkertons.jpg|thumbnail|300px|left|<i>Inventing the Pinkertons</i> by S. Paul O'Hara]]
In 1850, Allan Pinkerton founded a detective agency that would grow into the Pinkerton's National Detective Agency. Pinkerton's agency is easily the most famous and infamous security guard and detective agency in United States history. Pinkerton originally created the agency to help railroad companies to control and the investigate their employees and catch train robbers. But over time, the Pinkerton Agency Pinkertons developed an intimate relationship with the federal government and as these partnerships grew the Pinkertons' role grew increased dramatically.
This relationship started after the Pinkertons provided personal security to Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. By the 1870s, the Pinkertons investigated and captured hunted down people (including outlaws such as Jesse James, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) who stole railroad and bank money on behalf railroad and express companies with the approval of the Department of Justice. The Pinkertons are probably most notorious for their role in suppressing labor in the last twenty five years of the 19th Century.
S. Paul O'Hara's new book <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1421420562/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1421420562&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=7319f5ed3bf6fb980909977ac68f7ddc Inventing the Pinkertons; or, Spies, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs]</i> published by [https://www.press.jhu.edu/ John Hopkins University Press] attempts to separate the myth from reality and paint the real picture of the most famous private detective agency in United States history. JHU Press states O'Hara explains who "American capitalists used the Pinkertons to enforce new structures of economic and political order." Professor Maury Klein had said that the book not only explains how "the convoluted tale" of the Pinkertons, but reads "like a detective novel."
<b>The Pinkertons had a fearsome reputation and were seen as extremely competent in the 19th Century. Was that an accurate description of the company?</b>
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Reputation was tremendously important to Allan Pinkerton and his agency, but the firm’s reputation was also complex and contradictory. The meaning of the agency was layered in myth and counter-myth, narrative and counter-narrative. Allan Pinkerton crafted his agency’s reputation upon new ideals of professional and moral detectives capable of delving into the depths of the criminal underworld. For certain audiences, then, the Pinkerton’s did have a well-deserved reputation as highly competent and professional lawmen. However fans of Jesse James or defenders of the Molly Maguires countered with infamous tales of hired mercenaries doing the railroad or mining companies’ dirty work. This reputation was less about competency than ruthlessness, recklessness, and fearsomeness. Even amongst businessmen, some saw the Pinkertons as the armed men holding back the tides of anarchy, while others saw reckless thugs who exacerbated conflicts and spurred public outrage. Still others, especially the publishers of dime novel fantasies, portrayed the Pinkertons as incompetent fools, the almost comedic foils for the novel’s heroes. As for accuracy, each of these versions could, depending upon the location, the perspective and the teller of the tale, be an accurate description of the agency.
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