“Female detectives were unheard of,” he said. Pinkerton later chronicled his first encounter with Warne. She insisted she wanted to become an operative. Only a few years earlier, in 1856, the widowed 23-year-old Warne, a long way from her birthplace in Erin, New York, had marched boldly into Pinkerton’s Chicago office in search of a job.
Warne to Pinkerton: Women Could ‘Worm Out Secrets’ Pinkerton, for his part, enlisted one of his most unlikely but most stalwart operatives to keep the president safe. Pinkerton had met Lincoln when both had worked on behalf of the Illinois Central Railroad, Lincoln offering legal advice and Pinkerton providing security. Not only had the Scottish-born sleuth established his business by providing security services to the railroad industry, but he had solid abolitionist credentials. Looking for help, he turned to detective Allan Pinkerton. One of Lincoln’s supporters, railroad executive Samuel Morse Felton, had grown alarmed both by rumors of conspiracies that involved Lincoln’s assassination and by the president-elect’s apparent unconcern. Lincoln loathed ostentation, though, and despite the volume of threats against his life, rejected any idea of a military escort on the lengthy and well-publicized train tour from his home in Springfield, Illinois to the nation’s capital. Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, foiled a plot to assassinate Lincoln in 1861.īefore the creation of the Secret Service, presidents relied on the military to protect them. has grown into a billion-dollar multinational organization, remaining one of the world's leading providers of security.American President-elect Abraham Lincoln walks near a railroad engine with Scottish-born detective Allan Pinkerton (right) in Washington, D.C., on February 23, 1861. Nevertheless, the Pinkerton agency endured, and today Pinkerton Inc. Pinkerton's reputation was left in tatters, and the company would spend years struggling to rebuild it. The company's past use of heavy-handed tactics, coupled with accusations of violence from union sympathizers, soon led to public outcry, culminating in the events of the Homestead Strike of 1892 when a firefight involving 300 Pinkerton agents led to the death of 16 men.
Pinkerton's involvement with the labor strikes of the 1890s would ultimately prove their downfall. But as the country drew to a close and ownership passed to Allan's sons, Robert and William, the agency's public perception would take a turn for the worst.
Frequently subcontracted for its role in the hunt and capture of outlaws like Wild Bill and Jesse James.
Pinkertons detective agency code#
Īdhering to a strict code of ethics and defined by its striking company logo (the supposed inspiration of the term 'private eye'), at its heyday, the Pinkerton agency had more agents under its employ than the standing US army and, using its extensive collection of mugshots, established the world's first criminal database. By the early 1870s, it had grown into the largest private law enforcement organization in the world. Though Pinkerton initially specialized in train robberies and counterfeit cases, after foiling a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln – who would later hire the agency as his personal 'secret service' during the American Civil War – the fledgling enterprise garnered a reputation as America's go-to office for counter-intelligence and security operations.
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