Inventing the Pinkertons; or, Spies, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs
Title | Inventing the Pinkertons; or, Spies, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs PDF eBook |
Author | S. Paul O'Hara |
Publisher | JHU Press |
Total Pages | 217 |
Release | 2016-10-18 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1421420570 |
The fascinating story of the most notorious detective agency in US history. 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.
The Rail-road Forger and the Detectives
Title | The Rail-road Forger and the Detectives PDF eBook |
Author | Allan Pinkerton |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 502 |
Release | 1884 |
Genre | Detectives |
ISBN |
Reginald McKenna
Title | Reginald McKenna PDF eBook |
Author | Martin Farr |
Publisher | Routledge |
Total Pages | 267 |
Release | 2004-04-30 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1135776598 |
Reginald McKenna has never been the subject of scholarly attention. This was partly due to his own preference for appearing at the periphery of events even when ostensibly at the centre, and the absence of a significant collection of private papers. This new book redresses the neglect of this major statesmen and financier partly through the natural advance of historical research, and partly by the discoveries of missing archival material. McKenna's role is now illuminated by his own reflections, and by the correspondence of friends and colleagues, including Asquith, Churchill, Keynes, Baldwin, Bonar Law, MacDonald, and Chamberlain. McKenna's presence at the hub of political life in the first half of the century is now clear: in the radical Liberal governments of 1905–16, where he acted as a lightning conductor for the party; during the war, where he served as the Prime Minister's deputy and the principal voice for restraint in the conduct of the war; and as chairman of the world's largest bank, where until his death in office aged eighty, he prompted progressive policies to deal with the issues of war debt, trade, mass unemployment, and the return to gold.
Pinkerton's Great Detective
Title | Pinkerton's Great Detective PDF eBook |
Author | Beau Riffenburgh |
Publisher | Penguin Group |
Total Pages | 417 |
Release | 2014-11-25 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 0143126075 |
The story of the legendary Pinkerton detective who took down the Molly Maguires and the Wild Bunch The operatives of the Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency were renowned for their skills of subterfuge, infiltration, and investigation, none more so than James McParland. So thrilling were McParland’s cases that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle included the cunning detective in a story along with Sherlock Holmes. Riffenburgh digs deep into the recently released Pinkerton archives to present the first biography of McParland and the agency’s cloak-and-dagger methods. Both action packed and meticulously researched, Pinkerton’s Great Detective brings readers along on McParland’s most challenging cases: from young McParland’s infiltration of the murderous Molly Maguires gang in the case that launched his career to his hunt for the notorious Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch to his controversial investigation of the Western Federation of Mines in the assassination of Idaho’s former governor. Filled with outlaws and criminals, detectives and lawmen, Pinkerton’s Great Detective shines a light upon the celebrated secretive agency and its premier sleuth.
The Pinks
Title | The Pinks PDF eBook |
Author | Chris Enss |
Publisher | Rowman & Littlefield |
Total Pages | 185 |
Release | 2017-07-01 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 1493030663 |
The true story of Kate Warne and the other women who served as Pinkertons, fulfilling the adage, “Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History.” Most students of the Old West and American law enforcement history know the story of the notorious and ruthless Pinkerton Detective Agency and the legends behind their role in establishing the Secret Service and tangling with Old West Outlaws. But the true story of Kate Warne, an operative of the Pinkerton Agency and the first woman detective in America—and the stories of the other women who served their country as part of the storied crew of crime fighters—are not well known. For the first time, the stories of these intrepid women are collected here and richly illustrated throughout with numerous historical photographs. From Kate Warne’s probable affair with Allan Pinkerton, and her part in saving the life of Abraham Lincoln in 1861 to the lives and careers of the other women who broke out of the Cult of True Womanhood in pursuit of justice, these true stories add another dimension to our understanding of American history.
Narratives of Enclosure in Detective Fiction
Title | Narratives of Enclosure in Detective Fiction PDF eBook |
Author | M. Cook |
Publisher | Springer |
Total Pages | 225 |
Release | 2011-10-12 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 0230313736 |
The locked room mystery is one of the iconic creations of popular fiction. Michael Cook's critical study reveals how this archetypal form of the puzzle story has had a significant effect in shaping the immensely popular genre of detective fiction. The book includes analysis of texts from Poe to the present day.
The Pinkertons
Title | The Pinkertons PDF eBook |
Author | James David Horan |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 564 |
Release | 1970 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9780709116806 |