15,697
edits
Changes
no edit summary
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. JHU Press states O'Hara explains that who "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 had said that it the book not only tells explains"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>.
