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[[File:Pinkertons.jpg|thumbnail|300px|left|<i>Inventing the Pinkertons</i> by S. Paul O'Hara]]
The Pinkerton National Detective Agency was security guard and detective agency was created to help companies to control their employees, but during the 19th Century their mission expanded dramatically. They served as Abraham Lincoln's personal security during the Civil War. In the 1870s they were contracted by the Department of Justice Federal to investigate and help prosecute anyone who violated federal law. They also were intimately involved in attempting to suppress labor strife in the 1870s and even tracking down outlaws such as Jesse James, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
S. Paul O'Hara's new book <i>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. O'Hara explains that "that American capitalists used the Pinkertons to enforce new structures of economic and political order."<ref><Inventing the Pinkerton's</i>, JHU Press Catalog, https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/inventing-pinkertons-or-spies-sleuths-mercenaries-and-thugs</ref> Professor Maury Klein said that it not only tells "the convoluted tale" of the Pinkertons, but it is reads "like a detective novel." S. Paul O'Hara is an associate professor at Xavier University and he also the author of <i>Gary: The Most American of All American Cities</i>. Here is out interview with Professor O'Hara. <b>How would you describe yourself as a historian?</b></ref>
I would call myself a cultural historian because I am interested in not only the conventions and forms of American popular culture (in this case, the literature of detective fiction, memoir, exposé, and dime novels) but also the linguistic structures of storytelling. I think that this can be a useful way to understand the social and cultural processes of industrialization in the 19th and early 20th centuries. As Americans grappled with the economic and social changes around them, they created a folklore and language to explain their new culture. I find myself drawn to the cultural metaphors and touchstones that society used to debate and discuss their hopes and fears; the Pinkertons were certainly one of these metaphors.
