Allan Pinkerton 1819-84, American detective, founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, b. Glasgow, Scotland. A cooper by trade, he immigrated to the United States in 1842 and opened in West Dundee, Ill., a cooper's shop, which became a station on the Underground Railroad. Allan Pinkerton was a hard-working man, and realized that working for himself would be a much better plan for himself and family. His wish to improve his business led him down the path to being a detective. Pinkerton realized that good quality raw materials for his barrels were obtained on a small abandoned island close to town. He made a decision that instead of paying others to give him the materials; he would move to the island and get it himself. However, once he got to the island, he saw signs of occupancy. Knowing that there were some counterfeiters in the area, he construed this could be the hiding place that had long evaded officials. His discovery and capture of a band of counterfeiters led to his appointment (1846) as county sheriff and, in 1850, to an appointment as the first city detective on the Chicago police force. He established in the same year a private detective agency, which had considerable success in solving train- and express-company robberies. In 1861 he foiled a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, and in the Civil War Pinkerton organized and directed an espionage system behind the Confederate lines. (The Columbia Encyclopedia) In 1850 Pinkerton resigned from Chicago’s new police force in order to organize a private detective agency that specialized in railway theft cases. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency (In Encyclopedia Britannica) became one of the most famous organizations of its kind. Its successes included capture of the principals in a $700,000 Adams Express Company theft in 1866 and the thwarting of an assassination plot against President-elect Abraham Lincoln in February 1861 in Baltimore. In 1861, working for the Union during the Civil War, Pinkerton, under the name E.J. Allen, headed an organization whose purpose was to obtain military information in the Southern states.

Allan Pinkerton established his detective agency based on his own morally upright principles. His values became the foundation of a respected agency. One of the first of its kind, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency offered a wide range of private detective services and concentrated on the capture of train robbers and counterfeiters. Pinkerton and his private workers quickly received a status for toughness, meticulousness and persistent professionalism. They gathered huge files on suspects, and were recognized with producing the first rogue's gallery and being the first to use pictures to make out convicts. Workers had to keep case journals and records. They cracked cases and stopped corruption through careful and painstaking research, often undercover work and close watch. Pinkerton's politics and abolitionist understanding drew the awareness of supporters of Illinois lawyer and President Abraham Lincoln, and Pinkerton was employed to work as Lincoln's bodyguard. Pinkerton and his men found and interrupted a plan to kill the president on the way to his swearing in, and were rewarded when Lincoln hired Pinkerton to manage the Secret Service. By the end of the Civil War, the agency's name was well-established, and it was frequently hired by the government to carry out many of the same jobs that are now regularly given to the Secret Service, FBI, CIA and the Department of Homeland Security. The Agency was also involved in the Molly Maguire’s case which was a secret organization. They were responsible for coalfield crimes and kidnappings. In the 187o’s the president of the Philadelphia and the Reading Railroad employed the agency to investigate the labor unions in the company's mines. A Pinkerton agent, got into the Molly Maguire’s using an alias, leading to the collapse of the labor organization. In addition, the agency was hired to capture and kill bank robbers such as Jesse James and the infamous wild bunch. In the process one of the agents were killed. All of these cases were carried out during the lifetime of Allen Pinkerton. The impact of the agency and private security industry became remarkable (Orrment, 1965). Pinkerton representatives and agents played an unpopular role as strike breakers. The agency had a cruel policy toward labor unions. Pinkerton said that he was serving the men by challenging unions. Union activists disputed and conflict resulted and sometimes became aggressive.

References:
Allan Pinkerton. (2009). In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved March 15, 2009, from Encyclopedia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/461110/Allan-Pinkerton.

Allan Pinkerton.”The Columbia Encyclopedia. Sixth Edition.2008.Retrieved March 15, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com. http:// www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Pinkerton.

Orrment, A. (1965). Master Detective: Allan Pinkerton. New York J Messener.