Allan
Pinkerton was born in Glasgow
in Scotland in 1819. A cooper by trade
he was active in the Chartist movement
as a young man. Disillusioned by the failure to win universal suffrage,
Pinkerton emigrated to the United States.
Pinkerton settled in Chicago and became
a deputy-sheriff. In 1852 he formed the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
The first detective agency in the United States, it solved a series
of train robberies. In 1861 the agency was given the task of guarding
Abraham Lincoln. While in Baltimore,
while on the way to the inauguration, Pinkerton foiled a plot to assassinate
the president.
The Pinkerton Detective Agency was
a great success. On the facade of his three-story Chicago
headquarters was the company slogan, "We Never Sleep". Above
this was a huge, black and white eye. The Pinkerton logo was the origin
of the term private eye.
Pinkerton became head of the American secret service during theCivil
War and between 1867 and 1875 led the pursuit for Frank and Jessie
James. In 1875 used an agent, James McParland,
to infiltrate the secret organization, the Molly
Maguires. McParland's evidence in court resulted in the execution
of twenty of its members.
After Allan Pinkerton died in 1884, the Pinkerton
Detective Agency was run by his two sons, Robert Pinkerton and
William Pinkerton.
Allan Pinkerton
(seated right) with his agents
working for the Union Army Secret Service.
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