How the Pinkerton Agency Laid the Foundation for the FBI and CIA

The Pinkerton National Detective Agency established itself as a premier surveillance and intelligence body during the second half of the 19th century

Founded in 1850 by Scotsman Alan Pinkerton, the Pinkerton Detective Agency was once the largest private law enforcement organization in the world

Today, we're going to take a look at how the Pinkerton Agency laid the foundation for the modern FBI and CIA

Alan Pinkerton, born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1819, was a political and social activist who was enough of an agitator to earn himself an arrest warrant in 1842

Not looking to spend time in the slammer, he and his wife, Joan, fled to America

They made their way to the Chicago area, where Pinkerton found work as a cooper, building and repairing barrels and casks

The Pinkertons eventually settled in Dundee, Illinois, where Alan set up his own cooperage

One day, while he was out chopping wood, he happened upon a group of counterfeiters

He captured and turned them in, which gave him some adulation in his community

Soon, people were asking him to investigate local crimes. In his memoir, Pinkerton recalled he was suddenly called upon from every quarter to undertake matters requiring the detective's skill

He was good at it and soon attained the role of Kane County's deputy sheriff in 1846

A few years later, in 1849, he became the first police detective in Chicago

In 1850, Alan Pinkerton, who was then a police officer in Chicago, Illinois, founded the

Northwestern Police Agency with lawyer Edward Rucker. This group eventually became the Pinkerton National Detective Agency

The agency built its name mainly by working with railroad companies, providing services

ranging from investigation and private security to the pursuit and capture of criminals

The Pickertons, a moniker they adopted, quickly became the respectable choice for security in

the Chicago area. By 1866, they would be so successful they were able to open branches

in New York City and Philadelphia. After Abraham Lincoln became president in 1860

the agency impressed him, too, when Pickerton agents, including Kate Warren, the agency's

first female private detective, discovered a plan to kill Lincoln in 1861. It was intended to take

place while the president visited Baltimore Maryland on the way to Washington D In truth the case pretty much cracked itself when the would assassins Cipriano Ferrandini accompanied by the Palmetto Guards openly discussed their plans in front of a disguised Pinkerton

Ferrandini boasted about how, with his first shot, the chief traitor, Lincoln, will die

Then all Maryland will be with us, and the South will be forever free. After hearing this, Pinkerton arranged

for Lincoln to travel by secret train to escape the threat. Lincoln assumed the disguise of her invalid brother

to avoid notice. The president-elect made it to Washington safely, and due to the detective agency's

success, Lincoln hired the Pinkertons as a secret service of sorts during the Civil War. Kate Warren's

life-saving plan, which required her to stay awake through Lincoln's entire journey, became famous

and the agency soon thereafter adopted the slogan, We Never Sleep. Once President Abraham Lincoln hired Alan Pinkerton, he earned the wider political support

of the famous detective. The Pinkerton Agency not only provided bodyguards to the president

but they also gathered military information on the Confederacy. To accomplish this

some Pinkertons disguised and planted themselves with the Confederate military. Even Allen Pinkerton himself took to traveling under the alias Major E.G. Allen as a means of

gathering intelligence. As a fellow abolitionist, Pinkerton became close with the president

serving as both a protector and confidant. When the Pinkerton Agency hired Kate Warren in 1856

it was because she was a woman, not in spite of it. The Pinkertons were well known for tracking down thieves

and infiltrating criminal groups, but Warren had a way for the detectives

to increase their efficacy. Warren walked into the Pinkerton office in Chicago

and told Ellen Pinkerton about her particular skills to acquire information in a way men couldn't replicate

Pinkerton, who figured Warren wanted to apply for a receptionist position, was resistant at first, but also pragmatic enough

to give her a try. Warren's skills weren't limited to stereotypical feminine wiles

During her first big case, she befriended a train robber's wife and obtained information about the location of his money stash

Pinkerton was so impressed by her results, he took to hiring women one step further

and built a full female bureau of agents to work for the agency

Purportedly, there are no pictures of Warren because she was that good at her job

Sounds like we should do a story on that lady. Thanks to the work of Kate Warren the Pinkerton Agency logo became a large eye with the motto We Never Sleep Then in 1938 a story by mystery writer Raymond Chandler creator of the famous fictional detective Philip Marlowe coined the term private eye

While the eye ostensibly stood for investigator, some have suggested that the Pinkerton logo

may have been the origin or at least the inspiration for the expression

Eventually, other fiction writers picked up on the term and turned the adventures of various private eyes

into a thriving literary genre. The abbreviation P.I. still exists today, although the romanticized image it evoked waned over time

Alan Pickerton used creative and innovative techniques to investigate crime and gather

information during the Civil War, including sending African Americans behind enemy lines

of the Confederacy. For example, take John Scobell, a former slave the Pickerton agency

recruited in the early 1860s. Scobell posed as a cook, laborer, and vendor

but also often assumed the pretense of a servant of other Pinkerton agents

The information Scobell supplied to the union included details about troops and local conditions

As a black dispatch, Scobell played a vital role in the war. Sounds like we should do a story on that guy

After the Civil War, the Pinkertons continued to work for the government, but increasingly became the police force of the American West

Railroad companies in need of protection from outlaws like Jesse and Frank James hired the Pinkerton Agency. The James brothers and their

gang robbed trains throughout the West during the late 1860s and early 1870s. The Pinkertons used

operatives and detectives to try and stop them, but to little avail. The outlaws were ruthless

The bandits even killed a top Pinkerton agent, John W. Witcher. His body was discovered with

wounds from famished wild hogs. In response, the Pinkertons attempted to be equally ruthless in

their efforts, reportedly firebombing the home of the James brother's mother in 1875

The agency's actions didn't catch the bad guys, but they did manage to maim their mother

and kill her younger son. The Pinkertons also took credit for breaking up Butch Cassidy's

Wild Bunch, helping drive Butch and the Sundance Kid out of the US

That duo fled to Bolivia, where local authorities allegedly took them out

By the 1890s, there were more than 2,000 active Pinkertons around the United States, with 30,000 reserve operatives

in the wings. For comparison, the US Army of the time had fewer than 30,000 men on active duty

The agency was so large the state of Ohio banned them fearing the agency could act as a private army or militia against them By 1906 there were 20 Pinkerton Agency offices across the United

States. Eventually, the Pinkerton Agency's complex methods and systems established the basis for formal government agencies. Organizations like the FBI, the Secret Service

and the CIA took on roles and duties once performed by the Pinkertons, who also functioned

as the top information repository in the United States. The creation of the FBI and these other government bodies

didn't finish the Pinkertons off, however. They continued to serve as the private investigatory arm

of industrialists, bankers, and corporations. Companies increasingly hired the Pinkertons to bust unions

as well as prevent uprisings among laborers. By the 1890s, disputes were so volatile

it was practically open warfare between workers and their employers, many of whom recruited the Pinkertons to defend their businesses

In July of 1892, the Carnegie Steel Corporation hired the Pinkertons to break up a strike in

Homestead, Pennsylvania. The workers unionized and negotiated a three-year contract in 1889

but the company endeavored to bust the union and impose new conditions. The head of the plant at

Homestead, Henry Frick, shut out the protesting workers from the factory, causing a riot. The

company called in a force of 300 Pinkertons to face 10,000 armed strikers. At the end of an

all-day exchange, nine workers and seven Pinkertons died. The state militia later

arrived to settle the entire dispute. After the riot, Pinkerton became a dirty word in many circles

Until his death in 1884, Alan Pinkerton remained active in his eponymous agency

He even went above and beyond in his efforts to capture Jesse James by using his private funds

After he died, Pinkerton's sons, Robert and William, inherited the agency and helped it grow to a massive size

Robert ran the New York office, where he focused on providing security at strike sites

Meanwhile, William headed the Chicago base and turned his attention to solving crimes

Pinkerton's grandson, Alan Pinkerton II, took over the agency in 1907. His son, Robert Pinkerton II, then inherited it in 1930

When Robert died in 1967, the family's leadership of the company finally came to an end

Today, a global security firm, Securitas AB of Stockholm, Sweden, owns the Pinkerton Agency