Inventing the Pinkertons; or, Spies, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs: Being a story of the nation's most famous (and infamous) detective agency
216Inventing the Pinkertons; or, Spies, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs: Being a story of the nation's most famous (and infamous) detective agency
216Hardcover
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Overview
Between 1865 and 1937, Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency was at the center of countless conflicts between capital and labor, bandits and railroads, and strikers and state power. Some believed that the detectives were protecting society from dangerous criminal conspiracies; others thought that armed Pinkertons were capital’s tool to crush worker dissent. Yet the image of the Pinkerton detective also inspired romantic and sensationalist novels, reflected shifting ideals of Victorian manhood, and embodied a particular kind of rough frontier justice.
Inventing the Pinkertons examines the evolution of the agency as a pivotal institution in the cultural history of American monopoly capitalism. Historian S. Paul O’Hara intertwines political, social, and cultural history to reveal how Scottish-born founder Allan Pinkerton insinuated his way to power and influence as a purveyor of valuable (and often wildly wrong) intelligence in the Union cause. During Reconstruction, Pinkerton turned his agents into icons of law and order in the Wild West. Finally, he transformed his firm into a for-rent private army in the war of industry against labor. Having begun life as peddlers of information and guardians of mail bags, the Pinkertons became armed mercenaries, protecting scabs and corporate property from angry strikers.
O’Hara argues that American capitalists used the Pinkertons to enforce new structures of economic and political order. Yet the infamy of the Pinkerton agent also gave critics and working communities a villain against which to frame their resistance to the new industrial order. Ultimately, Inventing the Pinkertons is a gripping look at how the histories of American capitalism, industrial folklore, and the nation-state converged.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781421420561 |
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Publisher: | Johns Hopkins University Press |
Publication date: | 10/18/2016 |
Pages: | 216 |
Sales rank: | 643,444 |
Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d) |
Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Introduction: Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, or heroes and villains of the Gilded AgeChapter 1: In which Allan Pinkerton creates his agencyThe making of Allan PinkertonAllan Pinkerton goes to warCrafting the Pinkerton detectiveConclusion: a detective mythology
Chapter 2: In which Pinkerton Men become the anti-heroes of the middle westMississippi OutlawsThe Outlaw Jesse JamesWild bandits of the borderConclusion: Highwaymen of the Railroad
Chapter 3: In which Pinkerton agents infiltrate secret societiesA Noxious Weed of IrelandAmong the Assassins! Strikers, Communists, Tramps, and DetectivesConclusion: Anarchists and the Detectives
Chapter 4: In which the Pinks serve as a private army for capitalThe "Pinkerton Force" or detectives on trial"Pinkerton is neither more nor less than the head of a band of mercenaries"The Knights of Labor and the Pinkerton roughsConclusion: Anarchists and the detectives
Chapter 5: In which Pinkerton myrmidons invade HomesteadThe Great Battle of HomesteadMr. Frick's hired invadersThe Pinkerton system is a standing menace to order and good governmentConclusion: Pinkerton raiders, the advance guard to Poles and Hungarians
Chapter 6: In which the disgrace of Pinkertonism is subjected to public scrutinyProtecting property from the" Tyranny of the Homestead Mo"Protecting free labor from "this gang of Hessians"Protecting society from the "Disgrace of Pinkertonism"Conclusion: Lessons on Corporate management from the Mercenaries of the Oligarchy
Chapter 7: In which the frontier closes and Pinkerton practices are exposedA Cowboy Detective and a Labor SpySurrounded with lice, Pinkerton detectives and other verminPinking the PinkertonsConclusion: Anarchists and the Detectives, reconsidered
Chapter 8: In which the modern state takes on the duties of the Pinkerton agencyBirdy Edwards and the last myth of the PinkertonsThe modern state and the detectivesStool Pigeons, Company gunmen, and the New DealConclusion: Dashiell Hammett, Pinkerton
Conclusion: Pinkerton's Inc.
What People are Saying About This
This fine study not only tells the convoluted tale of the notorious Pinkerton Agency but also seats it in the context of a rapidly-changing American culture. As a read it rivals the best detective novel.
This detailed, fascinating book taps into the emerging popular culture focusing on the detective story to examine the transformation of the Pinkerton Agency from a Civil War spy operation into a professional detective agency and finally into a private strikebreaking army. O'Hara tells an important and interesting story.—Phillip G. Payne, St. Bonaventure University, author of Crash! How the Economic Boom and Bust of the 1920s Worked
This fine study not only tells the convoluted tale of the notorious Pinkerton Agency but also seats it in the context of a rapidly-changing American culture. As a read it rivals the best detective novel.—Maury Klein, Professor Emeritus, University of Rhode Island
This detailed, fascinating book taps into the emerging popular culture focusing on the detective story to examine the transformation of the Pinkerton Agency from a Civil War spy operation into a professional detective agency and finally into a private strikebreaking army. O'Hara tells an important and interesting story.