Allen Pinkerton

958 Words2 Pages

Allan Pinkerton , born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1819, emigrated to Chicago. He was

America’s first “private eye.” A man of many contradictions, he was a conservative

who strongly opposed slavery, a very cautious man who risked his life capturing criminals,

a militant labor organizer who suppressed the labor movement, and fought for women’s

rights to be detectives.

During his twenty-eight year career as a private detective, Allan Pinkerton and his

agency investigated over a thousand crimes. Pinkerton was involved in many dramas

of the nineteenth century. Work and the Underground Railroad became his life. The

Pinkerton’s fed and sheltered fugitives in their own home. Pinkerton was a very moral

man and despised slavery. The crisis over slavery brought the nation to the brink of the

Civil War. The South demanded a guarantee that slavery would continue in the states

where it was already established and permitted to spread to the Midwest and West. The

South also wanted the North to return any slaves who fled there via the Underground

Railroad. The North wanted to stop the spread of slavery. In 1850 the Fugitive Slave Act

was passed, which made it a federal crime for slaves to run away and a crime for anyone

to assist them. Allan Pinkerton could be arrested and imprisoned for his involvement

in assisting the slaves.

When the war began, Allan Pinkerton would finally combine his detective skills with

his abolitionist beliefs. Allan Pinkerton protected Abraham Lincoln against southern

radicals, who demanded the Union be dissolved and the Southern states form an independent

government. They hated Lincoln because they feared he would abolish slavery. In 1861,

Pinkerton uncovered a plot to assassinate President Lincoln. Pinkerton , with his top agents,

posed as Southern sympathizers and found themselves within the conspirators. As a spy

in the their midst, the plot was uncovered. As President Lincoln changed trains in

Maryland on February 22, he would be shot. Some of the guards protecting the President

were also Southern radicals. At the same time there was another plot to blow up the train

carrying Lincoln. Once the train was destroyed, they would cut the telegraph wires and

blow up bridges and train tracks to prevent Northern troops entry into Baltimore.

If President Lincoln was killed, there would definitely be a civil war. Pinkerton acte...

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... he still worked for the government by investigating merchants who were

cheating them by selling faulty military supplies.

When the war ended, Allan Pinkerton returned to Chicago to build up his private

investigation business. On April 14,1865, President Lincoln was assassinated. Allan

Pinkerton was not there to protect him.

The end of the Civil War did not bring peace to America. There were continuous outbursts

and gangs were formed to rob trains. Pinkerton and his agents pursued the outlaws with

vengeance, the most famous being the James brothers.

In 1869, Allan Pinkerton suffered a stroke, but fought the paralysis. A new battlefield

emerged in the 1870’s in the coal mines, steel mills, and factories. The workers were

treated like slaves, and fought back. Pinkerton was employed to end these organizations,

to infiltrate, gather evidence, and convict them. A strike broke out in a steel plant, ending

in fatalities. Pinkerton’s reputation was seriously damaged.

Allan Pinkerton died in 1884. He was a legend, gaining an international reputation for

crime solving and protection. When the F.B.I. was founded, it was modeled after

the Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency.

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