Allan Pinkerton: Spy, Detective, Strike-Breaking Conspiracy Theorist

In this episode of History’s Devils, James is joined by Lewis Sage-Passant (How To Get on A Watchlist) to explore the rise of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency and the violent contradictions at the heart of its founder, Allan Pinkerton.

Once a Chartist radical, Pinkerton reinvented himself in America as a celebrated detective and Union intelligence agent during the American Civil War. After the war, his story took a darker turn as he became increasingly consumed by conspiracy thinking, transforming his agency into a powerful private security force that was used by industrialists to suppress strikes and control workers who were agitating for their rights at the height of America's Gilded Age.

A must-listen deep dive for anyone interested in the history of private security, radical politics and the hidden forces behind wealth and power in America.

Further Reading

• Beyond States and Spies: The Security Intelligence Services of the Private Sector

·       Inventing the Pinkertons; or, Spies, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs

·       Allan Pinkerton: America's Legendary Detective and the Birth of Private Security

What's covered in this episode

• Allan Pinkerton's childhood in Glasgow's Gorbals district, his working-class upbringing, and the political influences that shaped his early life.

• The impact of Chartism, the People's Charter of 1838, and the political unrest of Industrial Revolution Britain, including the legacy of the Peterloo Massacre.

• The debate over whether Pinkerton was a genuine Chartist activist or potentially an informant within the movement before emigrating to America in 1842.

• Pinkerton's arrival in Illinois after a shipwreck off Nova Scotia and his transition from cooper and barrel maker to aspiring crime fighter.

• The famous counterfeiting investigation near Dundee, Illinois, that launched Pinkerton's career in law enforcement and private investigations.

• The weaknesses of nineteenth-century American policing and how they created opportunities for private security services and detective agencies.

• The creation of the Northwest Police Agency and its transformation into the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

• Pinkerton's work protecting railroads, investigating theft, combating counterfeit currency, and developing early investigative tradecraft.

• The origins of the famous "We Never Sleep" logo and the connection between Pinkerton branding and the modern term "private eye."

• Pinkerton's recruitment of female investigators and his innovative use of undercover operatives drawn from target communities.

• Pinkerton's anti-slavery beliefs, involvement with the Underground Railroad, support for Abraham Lincoln, and alleged links to abolitionist John Brown.

• The Harpers Ferry raid, the role of Robert E. Lee in suppressing the uprising, and claims that Pinkerton considered helping Brown escape imprisonment.

• Pinkerton's relationship with George McClellan and the emergence of private detectives as intelligence operatives during the American Civil War.

• The alleged Baltimore Plot of 1861 and Pinkerton's role in protecting President-elect Abraham Lincoln during his journey to Washington for inauguration.

Mentioned in this episode

Allan Pinkerton, Pinkerton Detective Agency, Lewis Sage-Passant, James Crossland, Glasgow, Gorbals, River Clyde, Chartism, People's Charter, Peterloo Massacre, French Revolution, Industrial Revolution, Luddites, Dundee Illinois, Chicago, Illinois, counterfeiting, private security, private intelligence, railroad security, Adams Express Company, We Never Sleep, private eye, Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, Bleeding Kansas, Harpers Ferry Raid, slavery, abolitionism, Underground Railroad, George McClellan, American Civil War, Robert E. Lee, Baltimore Plot, Fire Eaters, Maryland, intelligence tradecraft, corporate investigations, detective history, nineteenth-century policing.

Chapters 

1. Introduction to History's Devils (00:11)
2. Allan Pinkerton's Early Life and Political Interests (04:14)
3. The Move to America and Early Detective Work (09:38)
4. Founding the Pinkerton Detective Agency (15:12)
5. Pinkerton's Role in the Civil War (22:26)
6. The Pursuit of Jesse James (37:11)
7. Transition to Union Suppression and Strikebreaking (42:28)
8. The Homestead Strike and Pinkerton's Legacy (51:53)
9. Conclusion and Reflections on Pinkerton's Impact (62:54)

Thanks to SOULFULJAMTRACKS for their tune "Dark Halloween"

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History's Devils is a history podcast exploring the lives of murderers, charlatans, psychopaths, dictators, war criminals, tyrants, demagogues, revolutionaries, cult leaders, conquerors, fraudsters, and other controversial figures.

History's Devils is hosted by James Crossland, professor of international history and author of:

Rogue Agent: From Secret Plots to Psychological Warfare, the Untold Story of Robert Bruce Lockhart

The Rise of Devils: Fear and the Origins of Modern Terrorism...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hello, folks, and welcome to History's Devils, a podcast journey through the lives of murderers, charlatans, psychopaths, and shithels. My name is James Crossland, and I'm happy to say that I have never been beaten with a stick during an industrial dispute, or to the best of my knowledge, been spied on by a private detective agency, to the best of my knowledge. And this means I've likely never encountered the subject of today's episode or any of his successors in the world of private security that was pioneered about 170 odd years ago in the United States by a man who started life as a humble working class barrel maker. He rose to be the bodyguard of presidents, the hunter of counterfeiters, the scourge of radicals, and along the way he laid down the modern concept of private security services, bought into his own myth, we'll get into the dimensions of that, and quite possibly lost his mind towards the end of his life, and like so many do, fell into the mire of conspiracy theory, paranoia, and the belief that corporate America's enemies were everywhere, leading him to betray the values that he once held. A man of deep myth and furious contradiction, our subject is Alan Pinkerton, the founder of the notorious Pinkerton Detective Agency. And joining me to discuss his life and legacy, I am happy to introduce the author of Beyond States and Spies, the Secret Intelligence Services of the Private Sector, and co-editor of the Encyclopedia Geopolitico website, which hosts the excellent How to Get on a Watchlist podcast. Welcome to History's Devils, Lewis Sage Passant.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Thanks very much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Okay, so Alan Pinkerton, this is a guy you know about. This is a guy you've had an interest in. When did you first come across him? What where did your interest start?

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah, great question. Um, so I started out uh doing my PhD on how um sort of private sector intelligence came to be and and looking at the origins of the field and what it was. And one of the first questions I asked practitioners when I went out to interview the modern intelligence practitioners was when did our field begin? And what really surprised me was the variety of answers I got. I got some people saying it's always existed, others saying it came about after 9-11. But there was about 20% of practitioners who came back to me and said it started with Pinkerton. And I, as part of my thesis and what went on to become the book, ended up writing a history of private sector intelligence. And Pinkerton really stands out to me because he only appears about halfway through the history of the field. You know, he certainly wasn't the founder of it, but he's the big name, he's the name everyone goes to. And I think part of that, as I'm sure we're going to discuss today, is that he's just a really interesting bloke. You know, he um got involved in all sorts of things, but he was also quite good at sort of publicizing what he did. So his name has this sort of outsized influence. Um, so I came across him quite early on in that research, and I've just been interested in him ever since. And I should give maybe a side note that I, alongside my academic life, I work in the private sector, and Pinkerton still exists today. I've worked alongside Pinkerton officers. Um, so it's really interesting to see this organization that you know started out in the sort of 1800s that still exists today. And if you look at their logo from the 1800s and compare it to their modern logo, you can almost see that evolution from you know old-timey Wild West detective agency through to slick modern corporate today. So I find them a really good analogy for the field as a whole, that you can see that evolution taking place. So I've been interested in them in a while, and Alan in particular, because he's just such an interesting guy.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

And as you as you touched on, very good at the self-promotion, one of a number of figures actually in this period who are working in law enforcement who kind of understand about the publicity of it. Um, and that's you know a big part of his uh why he's such a central figure. But before he becomes that central figure, let's start with the the humble origin story, because they've always got to have a humble origin story. Um, his is legit, though. He was born on the south bank of the River Clyde in Glasgow in 1819, in the infamous Gaubles district of the city. This is a working class neighborhood. There's a lot of immigrants, it's a rough part of town. It's the kind of place where you can get into trouble. And young Pinkerton apparently gets into quite a bit of trouble. He was a apparently quite a very physical guy. You know, he's sort of short, bit burly, known to scrap. He was also, though, and this is the the trade-off, he's not just some bruiser, he was book smart, he was very curious, he was intelligent. And interestingly, for for someone in this era and in this area, he is interested in politics from a very young age, even after he is forced to leave school at the age of 10. His father dies in 1829. His father notably was a policeman, part of Glasgow's uh police force, which only formed in like 1800. It's very, I mean, we say it's a police force, it's more like a city watch at this point, to be honest, but still law enforcement. And when his dad dies, Pinkerton kind of has to be the man of the house, basically, but he's still very much interested in the world around him and current events, even as he's learning to be a cooper or a barrel maker to support his family. And one of the reasons why I think he's he can't switch politics off is because 1800s, early 1800s, Britain politically is on fire. You know, that everywhere you look, that that idea of landed gentry running everything and everyone knowing their place in the dirt, that's that's really starting to be questioned. We have the aftermath of the French Revolution, all these new ideas, liberalism, democracy, blah di blah. The Industrial Revolution has got its first blowback with uh some of my favorite people, the Luddites. Love those guys, great work, uh running around, destroying machines, screwing with landlords' uh wealth, uh, a bit like the people today who sort of swap Google glasses off people's faces. Modern day heroes, in my opinion. Um, but these so it's it's this time of you know, febrile intensity. You have the Peterloo massacre occurs in Manchester the year that Pinkerton is born. This is where uh there's a there's a a rally for uh electoral reform in Manchester, armed troops are set upon the crowd, uh dozen, over a dozen people are killed, thousands of wounded. It's called a massacre for a reason. And Pinkerton, who is who is literate, he's he's reading about this, and that's probably why he starts getting into Chartism, which just to explain that for anyone not aware, it's basically the campaign for one man, one vote to try to take Britain away from the idea that only people with money get to control the elections and to try to extend the franchise. One of the six demands laid down in the People's Charter of 1838, from which they get their name, included stuff like you know, the right to a secret ballot, the ability to elect people who were working class. Again, it's all it's all very progressive stuff, and Pinkerton is a soldier for the cause by all accounts. Although there is some debate about his sincerity there. Have you come across that at all? Like this this idea that perhaps he wasn't as committed to Chartism as as uh he he later claimed.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Um I have, and it's it's with all things Pinkerton, it's it's really hard to know what's true and what's part of the public image and the sort of what are the conspiracy theories, because there were a lot of conspiracy theories about the guy. Um I think precisely because he was known as being the I guess the 1800s equivalent of like a prolific LinkedIn poster, um, you know, he's he's doing a lot of self-endorsement. And I think a lot of people try and counter those narratives, some with truth, some with lies. Um, I think for me, this particular theory, and I will call it a theory because I've not seen anything more substantial than that, is rooted in the ultimate irony of his life. That this guy who started out as a chartist, who who was in many ways a really progressive guy, you know, one of the first people to hire women in his field, you know, things like that, was also deeply rooted in these anti-activist type movements, you know, later on in his life, anti-union activities and so on. And there's there's clearly a tension there. And the question is, did his belief system change, or was he just, as you say, always pretending an act. Yeah, and that's really the big question. And and you see a lot of this with Pinkerton. There's a lot of stuff where it's really hard to disentangle the myth and the reality.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Well, the the core of that theory uh leads is is based in what happens to him when he flees Scotland in 1842. It's very sudden. He just ups and leaves with a young bride, uh, goes to America. Conventional wisdom and Pinkerton's own account holds that he was escaping the police because of involvement in radical activities, which is not implausible at all. But there's another one which says that actually, no, he was spying on his fellow charters. He was actually an informer and it's the charters who he's fleeing. Again, you you called it a theory, and that's all it is. Like, we don't we don't have solid evidence, but that is nonetheless out there as an idea. And if that is true, then it perhaps explains a bit about this conspiratorial mindset that he has or this uh the trajectory his life is going to take if he's an informer at a young age. When he's on the boat across, I liked this little bit of the story. When he's on the the the the ship across the Atlantic, it actually gets wrecked off Nova Scotia, and he has to leave everything behind, and it's quite near to the coast, they're able to swim to shore basically, or swim to a rescue uh vessel that comes out. But he he's it's it's that classic thing of you know, you you turn up in the brave new world with just the shirt on your back, the sodden shirt on your back. And again, who knows the the truth of that, but it does inform this sort of rags to riches story, um, which is is gonna be a key part of the next phase of his life. He winds up in a uh town called uh Dundee, which uh, as the name suggests, has a large Scottish diaspora, and it's uh outside of Chicago, Illinois. It's a sort of outer suburb of Chicago today, I think. And it's there that he he takes this turn towards what is gonna be the the start of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. He gets a job as a cooper, you know, he's that's his trade, he's making barrels, and one day he's out looking for wood or something, and he stumbles across what is it seems to be a sort of illicit encampment on an island, and it's it's there that he soon discovers that this illicit camp encampment is harboring counterfeiters, uh banknote counterfeiters, it's quite extensive across across the the uh United States at this time, and Pinkerton goes to what what passes for the the nearest police detective and says, Hey, you know, uh I I found this, go check it out. The the counterfeiters are apprehended. The uh detective who he summons is very impressed with Pinkerton, and we're we're off to the races there. This is the start of him getting jobs, usually being employed by local businesses who who are frustrated with all this false money that they're having to trade in uh to track down counterfeiters. Again, there's there's a few sort of holes in this story. It does seem like uh the the I there's and there's some of the news reportage at the time is interesting as well. Like there's one account where he doesn't just stumble across this place, he he's you know out actively looking for it, and he's you know, it's this sort of he's got a sixth sense and he can you know feel crime nearby, and it's that you know, he's he's Batman basically, and and he he goes out there and finds them. Either way, it does have this kind of my destiny starts now aspect to it.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

And I I would say, you know, uh, because he's given a reward for finding this gang, and I think that's the that's the start of this sort of remunerated approach to detective work that that he takes. And I think what's really important to note, you know, is uh and my research focuses on sort of the intelligence world, but the the sort of law enforcement investigations world is very similar in the sense that back then you don't have these formal mechanisms of doing investigations. There's not like a standard tradecraft playbook for cops to use, it's very personality driven, and I think that in part explains the sort of publicity aspect of Pinkerton, but also I think that's why we don't fully know so many of these details. Everything from, you know, he claims he was spied on by government spies because of his involvement in the Chartist movement. Um, as you say, there are rumors that he was accused by his fellow Chartists being an infiltrator. Uh, a lot of evidence in these sorts of cases and accusations were very circumstantial back then. So it's really hard to know what really happened. And it may be that he was falsely accused, that he was correctly accused, that he just suspected he might be accused, and the way these sorts of cases were handled could often be very unpredictable. So you could understand someone getting out of dodge in that sort of situation. Um, and same with investigating the counterfeiters, you know, this could absolutely be anything from he just happened to stumble upon it and tipped off the local sheriff all the way through to meticulous personal sort of investigatory work that perhaps he learnt from his father. Uh, and it's hard to know which. And I think what's really important to note is there are conflicting accounts in some of Pinkerton's own writing. Uh, so it's hard to know how much he embezzled himself and sort of, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

He forgets his own lies at some point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

So it's it's hard to know for sure. But also, some of the stuff was written much later in his life after a lot a number of cases, he may be just simply misremembering stuff. It's it's just hard to know. And I think I you're gonna hear that phrase a lot as we talk about Pinkerton. It's just hard to know because there are so many muddled stories.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

But this is, I mean, this is the classic origin story, and and you that's a good point about the remuneration aspect because I think that that kind of sets off because he's he's always been an ambitious guy. That seems to be a recurring thing in his life, and it does seem that after this this busting of the counterfeit as he goes, you know, I'm I'm not just some failed charter slash barrel maker, I'm gonna be a fighter of crime, and and that's kind of his the identity he assumes from then on out.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

And he's got a lot of room to maneuver and to carve out a career because when we're talking about policing in America at this time, I mean it's it's a volunteer system, it's again, it's it's volunteer and it's rife with problems because you have you could have a great volunteer sheriff who knows their business and is impartial and just, and you can have someone who's pretty corrupt and just in it for the the glory or the money, um, who's not very good at the work and everything in between. Um, and it's also very patchwork. You know, there are lots of places that are essentially lawless. Um, you know, so he after this encounter, he starts uh a company, a private company, despite the name uh called the Northwest Police uh agency. And you know, this when you hear that, you sort of imagine it's like a police force, but really it's a security company for paying clients. Um, and a lot of his work, you know, he's he's creating these sort of pockets of security for private businesses. A lot of his work in the early days is for the railroads, and they're dealing with problems, as you mentioned before, people paying in counterfeits, um, people transporting counterfeit money. Um, there's also it what what we in the modern sort of corporate security world would refer to as insider risks. You know, he has um investigations running into railway employees who are pocketing fares instead of paying them and stealing and in some cases tipping off gangs when valuable shipments are being moved. And because you're moving between these pockets of law enforcement in the cities, the railroads are a really good target if you're a criminal gang because they're out in the wilderness, you can rob them and disappear. And there's no forensics, there's nothing that can really tie you to crime if you weren't seen and identified with by someone. Uh, and obviously no one's taking a picture or anything like that, so it's pretty easy to get away with stuff as well. So, um, you know, as you say, a lot of room for him to grow and and a market that's ready for this kind of service.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, and and in Chicago itself, I mean, in 1855, the the mayor of Chicago, who is uh a mayor from the Know Nothing movement, who, uh for those who aren't aware, they're fascinating populist anti-immigration group. They've got more than a whiff of MAGA about them, to be honest, sort of 1850s MAGA. Um, and and the mayor of Chicago, he just decides, you know what, I'm gonna dismiss the Night Watch. I just I just don't want to pay these people anymore. And you get riots ensuing. So that's the kind of sort of lawlessness that he's dealing with. And that's that's not on some wild frontier, that's in a major city. So this idea that he can set up something like the Northwest Police Agency, um, I again it's that thing of he he he enjoys, I think, the detective work, he enjoys being this man who is who is smiting evildoers, but there's a lot of money to be made as well. And that Northwest Police Agency uh eventually turns into what is becomes the the Pigton Detective Agency. And I'm gonna put up a picture here for the benefit of those on YouTube of the the famous symbol. I love this symbol, the We Never Sleep logo of the unblinking eye. You mentioned it before, it's got that old Western vibe to it, and it is the origin of the term private eye from what from what we're told, unless you know that's uh some sort of um quisnight question gone wrong. But as far as I know, this is where we get the term private eye from. So that alone, we've already got a bit of legacy there just in the branding that that he comes up with.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

It's also it's worth noting that you know at this stage when he changes the name, it also becomes the Pinkerton National Police Agency. You know, he's explicitly saying this isn't a Northwest thing anymore, this is this is national business. And he did this off the back of a successful investigation into the Adams Express company that had um Heist had had uh you know seized a ton of money from from an Adams Express Express courier package, um, and he was able to track it down, sort of surveil the hideout, recover the funds. And this was a big enough story that it made national news. And so that's one, why he launched nationally, but two, why he put his own name to the company at this point. He said, you know, this isn't just the you know, the the national police agency, this is the Pinkerton National Police Agency. So I think he he really has this he has this eye for good publicity and and knowing how to jump on those successes and and use it to sort of push the company forward.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

You say that he he investigates these things. I'm often wondering, you know, the people he's recruiting, how how skilled are they? Or is he just is he really just the guy doing all the investigating and and sort of directing traffic?

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Um there are there are sort of named individuals that pop up through the history, and many of them come up time and time again in these cases. So you can kind of imagine that he's identifying people as his sort of trusted go-to investigators. And you know, earlier I mentioned that he was quite a progressive individual. I think you know, one of the things that really stands out is how often he used women as investigators at a time when no one thought to do that. And you know, I think to a degree that's precisely why he did it, because no one's gonna suspect women of spying on them because it's not a it's not the done thing, and he sees an opening there. Uh uh, and not to mention, you know, he sees women can be really good investigators, so uh why not? Um, and you see these names pop up uh repeatedly in in certain cases. I think some of them are recruited precisely because of the target. So he when he's you know later in life investigating certain uh immigrant groups across America, he recruits from within those communities because he knows he he can't turn up as a Scotsman into an Irish uh you know immigrant movement. He needs an Irish investigator. There's stories of him using women agents to go door to door in sort of target environments and speak to the wives because he knew they would have an easier time making those kind of approaches. And we can talk about that particular example later because that's where he gets into some really clever sort of influence ops type work. Um, but you know, so he he, I think, like any good investigator, any good intelligence officer, he you know, he's he's targeting his targets and and building a pack around what's most likely, you know. This is the same in modern intelligence work. If you're gonna send someone to recruit a spy, you you recruit someone who looks and sounds like them and is likely to have the same interests. And you know, what you want is that natural click of, I like this person, I'm gonna talk to them. And if you're investigating these highly suspicious gangs, you you can't just turn up and sort of, you know, how do you do, fellow criminals, any good crimes going on? You have to seem like someone they're gonna open up to. So he was very good at that, I think.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

He understands these cerebral aspects of tradecraft, you know, like he just seems to have it instinctively. So give it give the devil his due there. And he also understands, as you say, the sort of art of branding and networking and self-promotion. When he's working with these railway companies, stopping robberies, which start to become a bit of a thing, like the train robberies start to become a bit of a thing in the 1850s. That's building him a rep and building him more contacts and through contacts, more clients. But importantly, when he's negotiating contracts with these people, these companies, he is coming into the orbit of a uh a lawyer who is a rising star of both Chicago's legal and political fraternity, a man by the name of Abraham Lincoln. And this is not Pinkerton's only connection to you know what is going to become the abolitionist movement. You mentioned him being progressive before. He is a really big supporter. supporter of of Lincoln. He is a big he's he's militantly anti-slavery and he's a very big fan and indeed a uh in some accounts a a close friend and colleague of John Brown who for those who aren't aware John Brown is is the the he is the uh anti-slavery militant of the 1850s he is spending the 1850s running around Kansas principally attacking slave owners um trying to free slaves in this campaign that's called Bleeding Kansas this brutal sort of militia war between pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups and in 1859 October 1859 John Brown launches uh an infamous attack on a federal arsenal in a town called Harper's Ferry in West Virginia the aim there is to liberate the slaves arm them doesn't really work out a team of uh Marines turn up headed by the uh the future head of the Confederate army Robert E. Lee who reportedly claps John Brown around around the head with the the butt of his uh of his saber knocks him out and Brown is imprisoned and the story goes that Pinkerton hears word of this and he actually gets his lads together and starts planning a jailbreak to free this guy who is a who is a convicted criminal and so for Mr. Law and Order to kind of countenance crossing that line because he believes John Brown is righteous in his cause again now the important point is this jailbreak does not happen so it could all just be fluff and rumor.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

It's also the question of when the stories around this were written because I got the sense reading a lot of the old Pinkerton literature that some of it was written long after the fact and you can imagine a post-Civil war Pinkerton going yeah I I actually knew this was wrong all along and I was going to help these guys out I just you know wasn't able to so it's really hard to know um the other point you made about sort of cousing up with Lincoln and so on um that wasn't the only sort of bit of clever networking he did he'd he'd worked at the Rock Island and in Illinois Central Railroad with a guy called George McClellan who went on to become General George McClellan and during the Civil War Pinkerton went to work for him by all accounts was actually very unsuccessful as an intelligence officer for McClellan McClellan was consistently um criticized for being an overly cautious commander and uh by some accounts this was because he was constantly being given massively inflated Confederate troop strength by Pinkerton and it's important to note a good detective is not necessarily like for like a good intelligence officer. They are different jobs and you know investigations are about catching the bad guys assigning culpability and so on. Intelligence is often about predicting things about trying to fill in gaps and uh you know try and give people what we refer to as decision advantage in in war fighting and other decision making. They're different jobs and it speaks to the immaturity of the time in both law enforcement and intelligence work that someone like Pinkerton could just jump between the two um especially at such high levels working for such important people. But it was as you say it was a it was a very networked community back then. There weren't these formal structures where McClellan could go to you know say the CIA which didn't exist and say give me your best intelligence officer it's it's just oh I worked with this guy at the railroads let's see if he can help.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Yeah yeah discussed this on a previous episode of History's Devils talking about British intelligence and how you know from this period onwards there's this nascent form of it but really it's it's detectives doing intelligence work which as you say doesn't necessarily work out a different skill set there as well as bereft of formal structures you've basically got individuals going freelance and and and free and through through informal networks you know it's it's basically you know mates knowing each other and saying hey we've got a problem come sort it out and Pinkerton I mean Pinkerton does does do well off that off that lack of structure I think because he is clearly a a go getter he is clearly a careerist but the thing you mentioned about about the the John Brown story and how it comes after the fact yeah I think you're right that that's part of the mythmaking that happens after the Civil War but this is the this is the issue with Pinkerton always is that when something seems like complete bullshit there's still some truth there and the truth is that he was involved in the Underground Railroad he was involved in smuggling freed slaves as far away from the south as humanly possible and as you mentioned he's he's not just employing women he's uh he's an atheist he's in favor of abortion he's sort of pro-women's rights in in this respect you know this guy is this guy's captain progressive in in many respects but at the same time as we'll get to that there's a there's a turn coming there's a big heel turn coming but the Civil War is is when well the eve of the civil war is when he's really sort of riding high the Pinkerton detective agency is starting to really come into its own and but before hostilities break out to my mind probably the most legendary early Pinkerton story occurs when there's and it's been heavily mythologized indeed there's been entire books written about this taking it as red that this happened and I'm not entirely sure that this was real as you say this is a recurring theme here but here's the story is in February 1861 president elect Abraham Lincoln who's elected in November 1860 on on a platform of of amongst amongst other things uh curtailing the spread of slavery throughout the rest of the North American territories he's traveling to Washington for his inauguration Pinkerton obviously knows um Lincoln has been advising him about security because he's now going to be a president and there's no secret service at this time yes yes that's an important the president just travels by train and anyone can walk up to him there's no you know when we think of the president's day we think about guys in sunglasses with briefcases and submachine guns back then that there wasn't really any of this no no there's there's there's a Lincoln and a sword stick you know that's your security basically and Pinkerton has an agent that's attached to a group called the Fire Eaters a fantastic name. And they're one of these many pro-slavery secret societies there's a lot of these in Maryland there's a lot of these you know sort of well north of the Mason Dixon line and it's there that Pinkerton's man allegedly hears them saying when when the train stops in Baltimore we're gonna drag Lincoln off there we're going to shoot him on the platform we've paid off the cops who are who are pro-slavery as well we've got a whole conspiracy cranking here and Pinkerton goes to Lincoln with this and Lincoln's like well that's that's nonsense and he and he basically tells him to sod off a couple of times until eventually Pinkerton wears him down eventually convinces Lincoln because as you say there isn't this culture of well I need security that isn't a thing that Lincoln's thinking about but here's Pinkerton saying no you do there's a threat active threat against your life and so he convinces Lincoln to rearrange the train so it travels I think 36 hours earlier than it was meant to to throw them off the scent uh telegraph lines are cut he's got guys along the tracks and infamously he dresses Lincoln up with like a big hat and a cloak Abraham Lincoln is well over six feet tall and lanky and very awkward looking like this guy stands out right he is you're not gonna miss I don't care how big the cloak is how fancy the hat is you ain't gonna miss Abraham Lincoln and um that is is mocked in the press you know they they make a big deal of it going our commander in chief elect you know slinks his way into Washington secretly disguised as a washer woman or whatever it was sort of thing you know there's all kinds of hyperbolic press about it and it's all kind of mocking Lincoln and he's quite embarrassed about it. One newspaper report calls the plot all gammon and moonshine which is some nice old timey wordplay there.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

But I think it's right like I'm I'm not sure this this is so convenient because this really cements Pinkerton's spot alongside Lincoln and as you say gets him in to the whole union structure as the war's going to happen the whole union intelligence structure it's very convenient as a career building instant what do you what do you reckon you reckon you reckon this is all gammon and moonshine it's it's hard to know and this is the sort of perennial problem in security work is you never get credit for stopping something that never happened yet somehow Pinkerton manages you know he manages to take credit for saving Lincoln from an assassination that didn't happen so it it's it's really hard to know I think it was this and I think secondly there was also a a sort of um a a sort of counter espionage case in high DC society that he busted open again with a woman a woman agent who was able to infiltrate um the sort of high powered parlor society of DC and find southern sympathizers that were gathering information and passing it to the south and bust this whole ring open.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

So I think I think it's this double tap of these these two incidents happening at once that at least gets him this name for himself as a as this sort of you know not just investigator but also this kind of intelligence officer secret service type and that's precisely what he becomes when the war breaks out um in 1861 and to to that phrase Secret Service that is the phrase he uses and this has confused a lot of historians and and even some people who've gone well you know there was an American Secret Service Pinkerton claims that he he was the head of Lincoln's Secret Service. He wasn't he was one of a number of sort of freelancers basically again these informal networks who come in if there is a real intelligence chief I guess of the union it's probably General Lafayette Baker but even he is sort of in and out every now and then like it's it's again it's it's it's not to say that union intelligence is a shit show it does have some it does have some successes but it's all very ad hoc and it's not a cohesive service as we would understand it today. And Pinkerton himself seems to be perhaps most active at the start whereas you say he falls under the um in into the orbit of General George McClellan who is the commander of the Army of the Potomac he is meant to be defending Washington DC this is no small task that's been put on his shoulders and as you say the problem with McKellen and this is there's an ongoing sort of live fire debate about this amongst scholars of the American Civil War was this guy really that stupid like what was he just so incredibly he's notoriously overly cautious. Lincoln keeps saying to him you know when are you going to attack the South he's like well we don't have enough men we don't have enough men I need more preps you know I need more time and all this stuff and there is this link there that he is getting overinflated troop numbers numbers of guns reports about the efficiency of cavalry all kinds of things like supply lines like all this stuff that we now know wasn't true about the Confederacy the Confederate army in the start of the war is very rough and ready uh it is not this mass you know horde on the south bank of the Potomac but that's the picture that Pinkerton is painting for him and it does go back to the point you made is this a detective trying to gather intelligence and failing or is this Pinkerton I don't know trying to stop his friend from marching into death I I don't know it's weird.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

But it's also you you've got to remember that this isn't unusual at the time as well you know the first organized state intelligence activities come very late. The oldest continually existing intelligence service on the planet is is SIS which is formed in the 1900s um predated by about a hundred years by private companies own intelligence services so it it's this sort of ad hoc nature you've described it isn't that strange because what's happening is governments of course have always done intelligence especially in the military capacity but they don't maintain schools of intelligence they don't maintain you know tradecraft handbooks and things like that. It's it's exactly as we've said it's I know a guy who could probably do this kind of stuff. And when war breaks out they rapidly assemble all these people that can help and what that means is there aren't existing as far as we know intelligence networks in place. It takes years to develop human sources covertly placed in in useful places there's no point sending a spy up to the south them turning up and just trying to see what's going on you know you need people who are trusted who have access to the general's tents that can read the maps that know how to read a map that are literate and can read letters and have a way to communicate with you and if you don't have that stuff in place already you've got to build it and it it's hard to know what happened you know was Pinkerton trying to build this on the fly and just suffering from the limitations that naturally come with that is he falling prey to what we refer to as as paper mills and just just you know kind of scam intelligence where people are like yeah give give me a few bucks and I can give you some good intelligence and they're just making it up is he relying on just the sort of unreliable folks that he can get his hands on the the drunks the the sort of charlatans and so on it's really difficult to know. I think even if you put an extremely capable intelligence officer in that role given the state of state intelligence at that point in history I I don't know for sure they would do much better because you have to construct all of this stuff. But given Pinkerton's sort of ability to put a positive spin on everything he does, the version we have is the version he is telling which suggests the reality is possibly even worse than that. So you know I I don't know for sure but I I can't entirely fault him for not being this uh you know amazingly capable intelligence officer because that's just what everything looked like back then.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Yeah yeah that's that's fair and and to give Pinkston his due does seem to make a rather graceful retreat from being intelligence measure domo as the war progresses and he starts to go back to that which he's good at investigating stolen munitions rations things like that like internal investigations amongst the union he's only got about 20 agents under his command as well at this time so we're talking you know this is this is not uh a massive he doesn't sort of grow a vast intelligence network during the war he's kind of got his own people doing his own things a few additional people as you say some informers here and there but by and large this is small stuff but nonetheless he comes out of the war with the the the brand of Pinkerton well and truly established and this is when he gets into this is his his wild west uh period where he is is out there fighting the counterfeiters again bootleggers and the spate of railway robberies that beset the the expanding United States during the period of reconstruction where railways are moving further west and in particular he goes on the hunt for the notorious outlaw Jesse James and the James gang who are active everywhere basically I think it's from like Kentucky up to Minnesota like they're all through the sort of Midwest they they are a kind of terror that that is that is that is ominous and and and known in all quarters. And so it's this ultimate showdown that the most notorious dashing outlaw of the West against the greatest detective in in American history and the greatest detective does not win that contest. He fails quite dismally actually and and not and in a way that's quite controversial. There's a pretty notorious incident that occurs in in a farmhouse in rural Missouri when it's 1875 I think his detectives figure out this is where the James Ganger held up and they throw what are meant to be lanterns I guess into the property but these are basically like fire grenades and and they roll into a a fireplace explode damn near kill everyone or maim everyone inside um I think even some of Pinkerton's men get hurt. Like it's it's a complete disaster Jesse James is not one of the people who's who gets captured in in this or or hurt. And Pinkerton is isted in some quarters of the press as a sort of savage villain here who deliberately tried to kill these people. Meanwhile Jesse James goes off and I mean he becomes the sort of because he was a former Confederate militia leader during the war he's beloved by a lot of people in the South he's kind of like their Robin Hood. And he goes on to have this long career that doesn't end until he's shot by Robert Ford in 1882. If anyone has has seen the film with the longest and and greatest title ever the killing of what is it the killing of Jesse James by the coward assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford. It is actually a really good film um if a little a little bit long but it's it's again that's that's the story of what actually happens to him and in that story you know Pinkerton is is a non-factor which must have really grated on him because this was the showdown right he was meant to win it.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

But it didn't end his business it it was a PR disaster for sure but he he you know and I think this is the moment we start to see his career pivot a bit you know because this is where the references to you know busting up sort of railroad robberies and things like this seems to dwindle and he starts getting into the sort of secret society and union and activist surveillance game and that that's the more controversial part of his history especially like I say this is the great irony of his life given his his uh political origins that he suddenly goes from being you know this this sort of uh radical progressive to becoming the sort of archenemy of the unions um but he doesn't immediately start there he gets approached in 1873 by the president the the Philadelphia and Reading Railway and the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company and it's the same person who's the president of both of these basically saying that he had this secret society of Irish workers the Molly Maguire's that were terrorizing his managers um you know that were causing all sorts of trouble and could Pinkerton come and lend a hand and I think you know reading through his history reading all of his stories it does feel like the Jesse James debacle is the moment he kind of goes I need to change. I need to move away from this yeah I I think so definitely I mean he's yeah it should be noted he's he is writing all through this time period he he writes I think of like 17 novels or something he's he's a prolific writer and these are your kind of Sherlock Holmes adventure things it's it's very much in the you know Watson recounting Holmes's exploits sort of and it it's how you described the sort of Jesse James case it's the daring Pinkerton agent um who is this upstanding moral brilliant detective taking down these these dastardly villains and he he sells these as you know these are true stories but the villains in them are so cartoonishly evil you know it's it's a little bit far-fetched and hard tying people to railroad tracks that sort of thing it's yeah exactly and he you know he but he sees this as sort of trying to rehabilitate his image and and drum up publicity around it and I I also wonder if this pivot towards the shadier work also came about because of the PR scandal in the sense that you know prior to these scandals you could hire him to do your sort of uh you know uh anti-criminal type investigations and not worry too much about the public repercussions but if later on in life you're you're sort of okay I need to hire a detective agency are we going to hire the guys who got this so wrong and have such a bad image whereas there is a gap in the market for the shadier stuff the I need help infiltrating the unions I need help you know cracking a few skulls and so there is also a question of is he just taking the work he can find where people don't really care about the public relations aspect of it. They just need someone to do the dirty work. Again, I don't know for sure but it's it's just an odd coincidence that the pivot in his career happens at this particular moment.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

That's a really good point because the the context does give him that new outlet for a new career in the 1870s. This is the start of what's known at the time as the Great Depression but it we when the the Great Depression that we know starts in the 1929 uh it's since then been called the Long Depression which happens in the 1870s railroad speculation sets it off this is a time where you've basically got that gap between haves and have nots really widening you've got a lot of worker unrest you've got some very dangerous ideologies being imported into the United States uh Fenianism has been there for a while Molly McGuire as you mentioned anarchism is coming in socialism and these radical ideologies are being put into the heads of workers workers are going on strike and there is this demand as you say this demand in the market for someone who if they want to throw firebombs fine if it breaks up workers unrest great like the there's the the risk of PR disasters is not great at this time if you want to get involved in strike breaking which is what Pinkerton who's been a detective an intelligence guy and now he's going to get into strike breaking and this is where as you say he really kind of starts going down the rabbit hole of secret societies and conspiracy theories. The Molly McGuire's were Irish coal miners but they like a lot of Irish groups at this time Irish Republican groups in particular they take on the trappings of a secret society and for someone like Pinkerton who and this is I think a Pretty relevant point. He is now getting into what his 60s? In that, you know, he's he's becoming an old man, and he starts to really buy into this theory, which emerges in the 1870s amongst conservatives in particular, that there is a vast conspiracy of anarchists, Irish socialists, Jews are sometimes in there, who who are who are making all these things happen that seem to be bringing Western civilization to a turning point. Things like mass strikes, uh terrorist attacks, assassinations of important people, stuff like that. And this conspiracy theory, which really starts after the Paris Commune in 1871, when Paris is seized by radicals, that starts to really weave into Pinkerton's understanding of the industrial agitation that's happening in places like Pittsburgh, Chicago, and areas that he is is working in. And I think this really is part of that turn that you mentioned. He is succumbing to what is basically a red scare. And there's that confluence of, on the one hand, it plays into his knowledge of sort of secret societies and informers, which goes back to his time as a charterist. And it also plays to the fact that there's a lot of business being created by this workers' unrest and by the idea, if there is this massive conspiracy of subversive movements, then surely there's got to be some knight in shining armor to fight them. And who better than America's greatest detective?

SPEAKER_01 45:34

You know. There's also a, you know, just the context of this as well, that there's no collective right to bargain. You know, you you you can't just join a union and legally sit down with the company and they've got to hear you out, and it's a civil discussion like you would have today. It's you don't have the right to do this, you are breaking the law by doing it. There's no there's no employment law to protect you, you can just be fired for doing it. The only strength you have as a worker is is being there in numbers. And one of the key things managers try to do and business owners is identify the strike leaders because if they can take down the ringleaders, they can discourage the others. And so it's this very uncivil environment where you know people are quite literally cracking heads, they are you know being physically abusive to try and extract concessions on either side to try and get names out of people and all of this. And so as a result, you imagine you're a business leader, and and it's entirely you know reasonable in this period to be wake up in the middle of the night and a bunch of workers are outside your house threatening you, you know, to to be quite a dangerous thing. And likewise, if you're a if you're a a union boss to have a bunch of you know hired goons from the business leader turn up outside your house, and someone like Pinkerton turns up in town and says, there's this secret society that's been causing all of these strikes, and they're in your factory now, but I can solve it for you for a fee. You know, what a great business model. Uh, you know, even if there's no evidence whatsoever of this kind of activity taking place, he can sell it as a kind of wouldn't it be best if I checked? Let me get an agent on your shop floor and they can have a look and just make sure there's no activity, no organizing taking place. And you see this language, you know, there are not Pinkerton, but a Pinkerton successor, another company later on. Um, I found one of their adverts that I I absolutely love. And it's um essentially saying, you know, we have skilled mechanics, machine operators who are our who are our agents. We can place them on any shop floor and find out if any organizing is taking place. So it's not even there, doesn't have to be anything there. It's just uh let's just check, let's check for reds under the bed. Uh and if you're a business leader, you're so scared in this environment that yeah, that sounds like money well spent.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

So the the that monitoring is is a big part of what he's doing. But the other, you know, less clandestine and and more out there bit is the fact that he is deploying heavies to factory floors to beat the shit out of people. Like it's it's and and again, like when we talk about strikes, uh, the great railroad strike of 1877 is a good example of this. When we talk about worker agitation and strikes, this is not this is not what we see today. This is not, you know, NHS doctors with placards outside politely chanting. These are life and death fights. This is this is gatling guns being put outside factories. This is people being killed, clubs, bullets, knives. These are pitched battles sometimes. And there's one in particular where the the Pigotons actually turn up with a machine gun or two, I think it is, like Gatling guns on the back of wagons to sort of clear strikers. Like this is it's it's brutal, brutal stuff. And even though, as you say, that there is this because of the extremisse of the situation, it does seem somewhat PR-proof. He does get that rep at this time as basically the hired hand of capital.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

Yeah, there's a great quote. Did you did you come across the Jean-Pierre Agnew quote, which says, uh, if if managers were the visible hand of the market, the Pinkertons are the visible fist, the shock troops of the industrial order. And I I I love that. That's such a great quote that describes exactly it because it was it was it was a life and death battle. Same for the workers. There's no there's no uh you know, unemployment payments, there's no safety net. You know, if you lose your job, and especially in these small towns where it's one industrialist that owns all of the industry, if you get fired or lose your job, you don't work, your kids don't eat, you know.

SPEAKER_00 49:34

Um Pickerton, though, kind of bows out of this battle uh at this point. His reputation, as mentioned, is taking a bit of a battering by the early 1880s. And maybe the stress of this contributes to his decline in health, which seems to happen quite sharply. He has a stroke, it seems, at some point early in that decade. He has a fall in Chicago in uh 1884, I think it is, and he dies shortly after. I think he gets an infected wound or something. Uh so it's a kind of inglorious end, he just sort of peters out. But the agency and its reputation lives on. Now, the agency, I think, passes to his sons, I think Robert and William, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

And and they they seem more hardcore. You know, Pinkerton dipped his toes, as you say, in this stuff. He he sort of tried it. And and I also don't know to what extent Robert and William were already involved in the running of the company in later Pinkerton's life, which may, you know, show that trajectory because he didn't just become a strikebreaker overnight. It's he he starts doing investigations and and the Molly McGuire's case, you know, there's he he one of his agents testified in court having infiltrated this group that they were planning, assassinations, murders, intimidation tactics, all sorts of things. You know, that's the sort of stuff that if you're in a modern corporate security team and you investigated and and found evidence of that, like you could reasonably go to court on those kind of things. You know, someone's threatening to kill people, sure, we're going to report that to the police, take people to court. Getting into the strike-breaking union surveillance type stuff, that's the sort of stuff that that's is pretty controversial. Even back then, it's pretty distasteful. So, you know, my question is how much of that was Alan, and how much of that is the Pinkerton Juniors sort of running things as they're preparing to take over the company? Because when they do take over the company, they seem to massively expand this line of business. They there's money in it, and and that becomes the the primary business model by all accounts.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

Because the brand, the the brand is we we break heads, you know. That's that's that's it. You know, that they're still a detective agency, but that's almost it for a while there, it's almost a euphemism for you know we we detect workers and we thump them until they you know stop striking. And the the evidence for for the sons being that the ones who might be driving this, I think, comes to the fore in uh uh 1892, when you get the homestead strike, which is probably one of the more brutal episodes in the early Pinkerton history. Again, this is a a strike that's going on for months. It starts in, I think, the summer and goes through to the late fall, and it's a steel steel workers going on strike, and this is a literal armed battle where they where they've basically surrounded the steelworks. The Pinkertons land like with landing craft on the river. This is like Normandy stuff. They try to. Yes, they get intercepted, don't they? Because the workers have their own boats.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

They've but they've taken a ceremonial cannon from out front of the town hall and and activated it. Uh, and then after that fails to stop the landing, they um I believe they pour boiling oil into the river, set it on fire, and and sort of force the Pinkettons to jump ship and you know, capture them on the beaches.

SPEAKER_00 52:43

All of a sudden we're back in the crusades, you know, throwing boiling oil down castle walls and into moats. Like, yeah, it's it's it's proper blood-on-the-floor combat, and this is what the the sons are presiding over. So, to your point, you know, that that escalation happens pretty quickly, and they seem perfectly happy to let it get as bad as it can get.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

A step before that, which is uh 1886 in Chicago, and there's a a group called the Citizens Association, which um it is not what the name suggests, it's a group of wealthy landowners who hire the Pinkton agency to take a look at some anarchists that are supposedly wreaking havoc across the city's economy. Uh, and in the trial of one of these activists, a guy called Albert Parsons, who who is accused of having thrown a bomb at police from a crowd of striking workers, um, Parsons says, uh, basically stands up and says, you know, I I I didn't throw this bomb. Uh, I actually say that a Pinkerton did it because, well, why? Because it would demonstrate why they're necessary, it would drive higher wages for them. And he basically lays out the fundamental risk with these privatized security services. Uh, and it's a it's a risk that still exists today, um, not throwing bombs at polices and things like that. But, you know, I work in the private security intelligence space. I'm always very reluctant to take intelligence on threats from a company that also has armed guarding services, because there's a real incentive for them to say, yeah, things are really dangerous. You need our services. Um, and I think that's what Parsons is accusing the Pinkettons of doing right here is not just creating the threat, but actually outright manifesting it, you know, throwing the bomb and and and then you know arresting the random and saying, yep, job well done. Because if they didn't, they they cannot go back to their employers and say, we found nothing, you know, these groups are just just harmless. You know, that's a that's a a not a good look for them in a market that's not necessarily super sophisticated. And then that escalates from there to to the uh um battle of homestead, which is it like you say, it's a battle. It's 300 armed Pinkertons against you know these uh these workers, uh, and it's quite literally cannon and rifle fire um that ends in disaster for the Pinkertons. They're captured, they're rounded up, they're literally dumped into railway carriages and shipped out of town. And you know, it's it's uh the real sort of I would say the the low point for the Pinkerton brand.

SPEAKER_00 55:05

And you mentioned the the the Haymarket bombing of 1886. I mean, that theory that it's a Pinkerton who throws the bomb, that's still, I mean, that's never been solved. There is still debate to this day. Is it the anarchists who throw the bomb or not? So it's even even after he's gone, the mystery over where the truth of these guys begins and ends, it's still it's still enduring. This is this is part of this legacy. And I guess this is this is where Pinkerton leaves them. They he leaves this pioneering private detective firm that he founded, he leaves it as basically a mercenary force in the pay of steel barons, principally railroad barons as well, but you know, these sort of robber barons of the Gilded Age. These men are now tasked, whereas once they were, you know, detecting counterfeiters, they are now tasked with risking their lives in pitch battles against workers who just want, you know, a decent wage and limitations on working hours. This is quite a place for a charterist, abolitionist, advocate of women's rights to end up. It's quite a place for his legacy to sit. And on on the on the subject of his legacy, worth worth you know rounding this off here by saying that in 1893, as a result of Homestead, you get the passing of something called the Anti-Pinkerton Act, a version of which is still on the books to this day, preventing groups like uh Blackwater, for example, uh, which you know, notorious private security firm founded by former Navy SEAL Eric Prince, who may well be on History's Devils at some point. I think I think he could be included. Uh, but that I mean, a key part of that act was saying, you know, you can't let groups like this operate on US soil because you know the the destabilizing effects that they bring is just you know horrendous.

SPEAKER_01 56:51

Not just US soil, they're they're banned by any use by uh by any of the US federal agencies. And it this was actually a problem during the Iraq War, um, that there was a need for outsourcing various intelligence and security requirements, and and they quite literally couldn't because of the anti-Pinkerton Act. Um, so it was a it was a you know, this is an enduring thing, but it it didn't stop the trend. And that's what I find really interesting. Um, so there was a committee in the 1930s, the La Follette Committee, which looked at sort of civil liberties abuses as ahead of the right to collectively bargain being enshrined in US law. And one of the investigations that this committee uh conducted found that by 1940 uh thirty-six, you know, Pinketon itself was still massive. They were in 35 cities, um, they had 52 spies within one union alone, the United Automobile Workers Union. Um, and it looked back at the sort of expansion that other companies had started joining the market where Pinkton was. Um so there were, you know, all these other companies popping up and actively advertising, saying we we will infiltrate your unions, we'll get on your shop floors and make sure we know if any organizing's taking place. So this is something that there is the scandal, there is the PR disaster for Pinkerton, but it it doesn't stop, let alone the industry, it doesn't stop Pinkerton from being an active force in in this kind of work.

SPEAKER_00 58:17

No, no. And I one thing I do want to say just because we can talk a lot about the, you know, we have talked a lot about the sort of darker legacy that's left by this and the the complexities of it. But there's one thing that I thought was quite interesting that he is um credited by by some people as being the guy who comes up with what today is the CIA's most wanted list, the 10 most wanted. He's the he's sometimes reputed to be the guy who goes, you know what, if we if we do have a sort of a leaderboard of the biggest threats, again, could be gammon and moonshine, or could be yet more evidence of the fact that for all this guy's fault, of which there's many, there's there's a pioneering spirit there. There's something that he he gets, whether it's his instincts for tradecraft, whether it's it's his ability to understand that you know women can make damn good spies simply by by virtue of their gender and the fact that they're not not suspected, particularly in this time. Like he he does seem to see things in ways that others don't. And you do wonder if not for that turn, if not for whatever it is that triggers that turn in the 1870s, if it's the the the the sense of I can I can make more money, or it's the rejection or the reaction to what happens with the the fiasco over the James gang, whatever it is, if not for that turn, you know, this guy could have been the Sherlock Holmes he wanted to be, right?

SPEAKER_01 59:43

You know, he's modern private detectives talk about this guy as as that foundational figure. And you know, he you know, like I say, modern practitioners in the sort of private sector security intelligence space. A good 20% of them, when I asked, and and these are people I'm I'm asking a question, which is where does your professional field come from? So something you know people would have a pretty good understanding of. A good 20% of them name Pinkerton specifically. Um, now I you know I came across this because one of the big problems in this field is we're not super familiar with our roots. We don't really know where we came from. The history is very muddled, people think it's a lot more recent than it is, but he's a big enough name that today people still see him as this foundational figure. And like I say, the company still exists, you know. If you if you look up their modern logo, they they still exist. I will say, you know, having having worked uh in professional roles alongside modern Pinkertons, my impression is that this is a company that is nothing to do with that shady past. You know, they are they are a very, uh, at least from what I saw, a very sort of standard, very slick corporate sort of investigations firm. Um, they seem well behaved by all accounts. You know, I don't think there would be much of a market for that kind of activity today. There are still pockets of that going on. Um, there are pockets of really unethical, modern investigatory behaviour. Um, there was a a uh panorama episode in the UK in, I want to say 1994, that uh unveiled a British kind of uh mass conspiracy to blacklist troublesome workers who had been involved in labor movements and things like that. In 2012, the London Crossrail Project um uh were faced with a lawsuit because supposedly they had been blacklisting um, you know, troublesome workers and so on. Um there are stories of this kind of thing that still pop up today, um, this kind of anti-activist intelligence and so on. Um, I hear rumors in the modern intelligence space of companies that are spying on uh environmental groups and other protest movements. There was a big scandal, uh I want to say in the early 2000s, where a um German uh spy, a German government intelligence officer was working a side gig uh infiltrating Greenpeace on behalf of a bunch of energy companies. Um so these sorts of things do still pop up. Um, but the modern industry as a whole is very far from this because reputational risk is such a big thing. You know, companies are so terrified of being seen behaving in such a shady way. Um, you know, the practitioners I've interviewed, and and there is a sampling bias, the ones I've interviewed are the ones most likely to talk and want to join industry associations and so on, so are more likely to be good people doing good work. Um, you know, they overwhelmingly reject this kind of work. They're terrified of being caught up in a reputational scandal of even being perceived as doing this kind of work. They see their job as keeping people safe, investigating genuine crimes and so on. But that's not to say there aren't ethical fringes of this field that that still do kind of exist and still do this shady kind of work. So um there's certainly a market for it. Um, and and there certainly was back in uh in Pinkton's day.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:54

Yeah. And that is as as as much a part of his legacy as you say, this sort of iconography around him as uh as the as the founding father of this profession. Uh he's a fascinating guy, he's a complex guy. To me, he's a guy who perhaps bought into his own bullshit a little bit at some point. That could have been his downfall. Certainly a man overtaken by ambition, who, uh, as mentioned, seems to have fallen into that trap of believing a lot of very scary stuff, paranoid stuff led him astray. He's a he's a recognizable type in that respect. But whether he's a history's devil or not, whether he's uh someone to be to be praised or to be uh derided, I'll leave that up to you, dear listener. Uh thank you so much, Lewis, for joining me for this. Um I'll put a link to your book, uh Beyond States and Spies, the Security Intelligence Services of the Private Sector, in the show notes. And thank you, dear listener, for tuning in, whether you are on the uh watching us on the YouTube or whether it's Spotify, Apple, wherever, just do the subscribing thing, the commenting thing, the liking thing, the sharing thing, all the things. Do all the things. I like it when you do all the things. That's the best, the best outcome I can hope for. And we shall see you next time for another edition of History's Devils.