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Allan Pinkerton
c.1861
Born	(1819-08-21)August 21, 1819 Glasgow, Scotland
Died	July 1, 1884(1884-07-01) (aged 64) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Resting place	Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Cooper, abolitionist, detective, spy
Spouse	Joan Carfrae ​ ​(m. 1842)​
Children	3

Allan Pinkerton (August 21, 1819 – July 1, 1884) was a Scottish-American cooper, abolitionist, detective, and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in the United States and his claim to have foiled a plot in 1861 to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, he provided the Union Army – specifically General George B. McClellan of the Army of the Potomac – with military intelligence, including extremely inaccurate enemy troop strength numbers. After the war, his agents played a significant role as strikebreakers – in particular during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 – a role that Pinkerton men would continue to play after the death of their founder.

Early life

Allan Pinkerton was born in the Gorbals, a working-class area of Glasgow, on August 21, 1819, the second surviving son of William Pinkerton and Isobel McQueen; he was baptized on August 25, 1819, which many sources incorrectly give as his birthdate. He left school at the age of 10 after his father's death. Pinkerton read voraciously and was largely self-educated. A cooper by trade, he was active in the Scottish Chartist movement as a young man. He was not raised in a religious upbringing, and was a lifelong atheist.

Pinkerton emigrated to the United States in 1842. In 1843, he heard of Dundee Township, Illinois, fifty miles northwest of Chicago on the Fox River. He built a cabin and started a cooperage, sending for his wife in Chicago when their cabin was complete. As early as 1844, Pinkerton worked for the Chicago abolitionist leaders, and his Dundee home was a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Detective

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After the war

Following Pinkerton's services for the Union Army, he continued his pursuit of train robbers, including the Reno Gang. He was hired by the railroad express companies to track outlaw Jesse James, but after Pinkerton failed to capture him, the railroad withdrew their financial support and Pinkerton continued to track James at his own expense. After James allegedly captured and killed one of Pinkerton's undercover agents (who was working undercover at the farm neighboring the James family's farmstead), he abandoned the chase. Some consider this failure Pinkerton's biggest defeat. In 1872, the Spanish Government hired Pinkerton to help suppress a revolution in Cuba which intended to end slavery and give citizens the right to vote. If Pinkerton knew this, then it directly contradicts statements in his 1883 book The Spy of the Rebellion, where he professes to be an ardent abolitionist and hater of slavery. The Spanish government abolished slavery in 1880 and a Royal Decree abolished the last vestiges of it in 1886.

Personal life

Pinkerton married Joan Carfrae (1822–1887), a singer from Duddingston, in Glasgow on March 13, 1842. They remained married until his death.

Death

Pinkerton died in Chicago on July 1, 1884. It is usually said that Pinkerton slipped on the pavement and bit his tongue, resulting in gangrene. Contemporary reports give conflicting causes, such as that he succumbed to a stroke – he had a year earlier – or to malaria, which he had contracted during a trip to the Southern United States. At the time of his death, he was working on a system to centralize all criminal identification records; such a database is now maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Pinkerton is buried between his wife and Kate Warne in the family plot in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago. He is a member of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.

Legacy

After his death, the agency continued to operate and soon became a major force against the labor movement developing in the US and Canada. This effort changed the image of the Pinkertons for years. They were involved in numerous activities against labor during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including:

• The Homestead Strike (1892), the direct impetus for the federal Anti-Pinkerton Act of 1893, prohibiting the federal government from hiring its detectives
• The Pullman Strike (1894)
• The Wild Bunch Gang (1896)
• The Ludlow Massacre (1914)
• The La Follette Committee (1933–1937)

Despite his agency's later reputation for anti-labor activities, Pinkerton himself was heavily involved in pro-labor politics as a young man. Though Pinkerton considered himself pro-labor, he opposed strikes and distrusted labor unions.

Allan Pinkerton was so famous that for decades after his death, his surname was a slang term for a private eye, whether they were agents of the Pinkerton Agency or not. The "Mr. Pinkerton" novels, by American mystery writer Zenith Jones Brown (under the pseudonym David Frome), were about Welsh-born amateur detective Evan Pinkerton and may have been inspired by the slang term.

Writings

Pinkerton produced numerous 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 ghostwriters, but the books nonetheless bear his name and no doubt reflect his views.

• —; William Henry Herndon; Jesse William Weik (1866). Allan Pinkerton's Unpublished Story of the First Attempt on the Life Of Abraham Lincoln. Phillips Publishing Co.
• —; William Henry Herndon; Jesse William Weik (1868). History and Evidence of the Passage of Abraham Lincoln from Harrisburg, Pa., to Washington, D.C. on the 22d and 23d of February, 1861. Phillips Publishing Co.
• — (1874). The Expressman and the Detective. Chicago: W. B. Keen, Cooke & Co.
• — (1875). Claude Melnotte As A Detective, And Other Stories. Chicago: W. B. Keen, Cooke & Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
• — (1875). The Somnambulist and the Detective, The Murderer and the Fortune Teller. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
• — (1876). The Spiritualists and the Detectives. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
• — (1877). The Molly Maguires and the Detectives, 1905 ed. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
• — (1878). Strikers, Communists, Tramps and Detectives. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
• — (1878). Criminal Reminiscences and Detective Sketches. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
• — (1879). Mississippi Outlaws and the Detectives, Don Pedro and the Detectives, Poisoner and the Detectives. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
• — (1879). The Gypsies and the Detectives. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
• — (1880). Bucholz and the Detectives. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009. Also available via Project Gutenberg
• — (1881). The Rail-Road Forger and the Detectives. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
• — (1883). The Spy of the Rebellion: Being a True History of the Spy System of the United States Army During the Late Rebellion. Hartford, Conn.: M. A. Winter & Hatch. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
• — (1884). A Double Life and the Detectives. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
• — (1886). Professional Thieves and the Detective: Containing Numerous Detective Sketches Collected From Private Records. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
• — (1886). A Life for a Life: Or, The Detective's Triumph. Laird & Lee.
• — (1892). Cornered at Last: A Detective Story.
• — (1900). Thirty Years a Detective: A Thorough and Comprehensive Expose of Criminal Practices of all Grades and Classes. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
• — (1900). The Model Town and the Detectives, Byron as a Detective. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co. Retrieved July 8, 2009.

In popular culture

• In the 1951 feature film The Tall Target, a historical drama loosely based on the Baltimore Plot, Allan Pinkerton is portrayed by Scottish actor Robert Malcolm. The M-G-M production stars Dick Powell and was directed by Anthony Mann.
• In the 1956 episode "The Pinkertons" of the ABC/Desilu western television series, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, set in Wichita, Kansas, Douglas Evans portrays Allan Pinkerton, who is seeking to recover $40,000 in stolen money but interferes with the attempt of Marshal Wyatt Earp (Hugh O'Brian) to catch the entire gang of Crummy Newton (Richard Alexander).
• In the 1969 Spaghetti Western The Price of Power, Pinkerton appears as an associate of President James A. Garfield who takes part in his (highly fictionalized) assassination. He is portrayed by Spanish actor Fernando Rey.
• Pinkerton is portrayed in an episode of The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1974) by Don Galloway.
• In 1990, Turner Network Television aired the 1990 speculative historical drama The Rose and the Jackal, with Christopher Reeve as Pinkerton, recounting his (completely fictional) romance with the Confederate spy Rose O'Neal Greenhow.
• In 1994, "Pinkertonova detektivní agentura" ('Pinkerton's Detective Agency") an episode of the Czech TV series Dobrodružství kriminalistiky ("The Adventure of Criminology") was aired.
• Pinkerton is portrayed in the 1994 American biographical western film Frank and Jesse by William Atherton
• Pinkerton is a major character portrayed by Timothy Dalton in the 2001 film American Outlaws.
• Pinkerton's role in foiling the assassination plot against Abraham Lincoln was dramatized in the 2013 film Saving Lincoln, which tells President Lincoln's story through the eyes of Ward Hill Lamon, a former law partner of Lincoln who served as his primary bodyguard during the Civil War. Pinkerton is played by Marcus J. Freed.
• Charlie Day portrayed Pinkerton in "Baltimore", a Season 2 episode of the docudrama TV series Drunk History, first broadcast on July 22, 2014.
• Pinkerton is a recurring character played by Angus Macfadyen in the 2014 TV series The Pinkertons.
• Pinkerton is an important character in Steven Price's 2016 novel By Gaslight.
• The Pinkerton Detective Agency plays a large role in the plot of the 2018 western video game Red Dead Redemption 2.
• "The Pinkerton Agency" is a podcast episode of the Dollop in 2024.

See also

• American Civil War spies

References

Informational notes

Citations

1. "1819 PINKERTON, ALLAN (Old Parish Registers Births 644/ 2 Gorbals) Page 107 of 113". Scotland's People. National Records of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon.
2. ^ Mackay (1997), p.20; August 25 was the date of his baptism, which many sources incorrectly give as his birthdate.
3. Sears (2017), p.104
4. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (July 20, 1998). "Allan Pinkerton". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved November 28, 2021.
5. Hunt, Russell A. (2009). "Allan Pinkerton: America's first private eye (1819–1884)". The Forensic Examiner. 18 (4): 42–46. ProQuest 347552047. Retrieved November 28, 2021 – via ProQuest.
6. Seiple (2015), pp. 10–11
7. Seiple (2015), pp. 11–13
8. Davenport-Hines, Richard (2004). "Pinkerton, Allan (1819–1884)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/49497. Retrieved May 2, 2008. Although christened by a Baptist minister in the Gorbals (August 25, 1819), he had a churchless upbringing and was a lifelong atheist (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
9. ^ Horan (1969), p.13
10. Horan (1969), p.19
11. Stiles, T. J. (2003). Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War. New York: Vintage. ISBN 9780375705588.
12. Norwood, Stephen H. (December 1998) "Allan Pinkerton: The First Private Eye by James Mackay" (review) Journal of American History v.85, n.3, pp.1106–1107
13. ScotlandsPeople OPR Banns & Marriages Record 644/001 0420 0539
14. Bumgarner, Jeff (September 30, 2008). Icons of Crime Fighting: Relentless Pursuers of Justice: Relentless Pursuers of Justice. ABC-CLIO. p. 49. ISBN 9781567206739.
15. Lanis, Edward Stanley (1949) Allan Pinkerton and the Private Detective Institution (M.S. Thesis). p. 170, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
16. Dickinson, Rachel (May 1, 2017). The Notorious Reno Gang: The Wild Story of the West's First Brotherhood of Thieves, Assassins, and Train Robbers. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 207. ISBN 9781493026401.
17. Swank, Mark A. and Swank, Dreama J. (2013). Maryland in the Civil War. Arcadia Publishing. p. 26. ISBN 9781467120418.
18. "Allan J. Pinkerton". Thrillingdetective.com. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
19. Samaha, Joel (2005). Criminal justice. Boston: Wadsworth. ISBN 9780534645571. Retrieved December 28, 2011 – via Google Books.
20. "Detective Allan Pinkerton Was Born in Glasgow, Scotland". Americaslibrary.gov. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
21. Mackay (1997), pp.208-209
22. Pinkertonova detektivní agentura (Television production) (in Czech). Retrieved November 28, 2021.

Bibliography

• Horan, James D. (1969) . The Pinkertons: The Detective Dynasty That Made History. New York: Crown Publishers.
• Mackay, James (1997) Allan Pinkerton: The First Private Eye. New York: Wiley. ISBN 978-0471194156
• Sears, Stephen W. (2017) Lincoln's Lieutenants Boston: Mariner Books. ISBN 978-1-328-91579-5
• Seiple, Samantha (2015). Lincoln's Spymaster: Allan Pinkerton, America's First Private Eye. New York: Scholastic Press. ISBN 978-0-545-70897-5.

Further reading

• Josephson, Judith Pinkerton (1996) Allan Pinkerton: The Original Private Eye Minneapolis, Minnesota: Lerner. ISBN 9780822549239

External links

• Works by Allan Pinkerton at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Allan Pinkerton at the Internet Archive
• Works by Allan Pinkerton at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• University of Chicago's library database
• University of Toronto's library database
• Detailed profile of Pinkerton
• Allan Pinkerton, in The Scotsman's Great Scots series
• A Brief History of the Pinkertons Archived January 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine

• 1819 births
• 1884 deaths
• Pinkerton (detective agency)
• Baltimore Plot
• American police detectives
• Private investigators
• American atheists
• American Civil War spies
• Chartists
• People from Gorbals
• Writers from Chicago
• Scottish emigrants to the United States
• Burials at Graceland Cemetery (Chicago)
• Accidental deaths in Illinois
• Abraham Lincoln
• Underground Railroad people
• People of the American Old West
• Scottish atheists
• Anti-crime activists
• Union Army civilians
• Scottish abolitionists
• Scottish spies
• Scottish company founders
• 19th-century Scottish businesspeople