Pinkerton (detective agency)

Pinkerton, founded as the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, is a private security guard and detective agency created in the United States by Scottish-American spy Allan Pinkerton in 1850. It is a part of Securitas AB.^[1]

Pinkerton became famous when he claimed to have stopped a plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who later hired Pinkerton agents for his personal security during the Civil War.^[2] Pinkerton's agents performed services ranging from security guarding to private military contracting work.

The Pinkerton National Detective Agency hired women and minorities from its founding.^[3] Pinkerton was the largest private law enforcement organization in the world at the height of its power.^[4]

References

1. "Pinkerton Government Services, Inc.: Private Company Information – Businessweek". investing.businessweek.com. Retrieved 24 September 2012.
2. Green, James (2006). Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement, and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-375-42237-4.p. 43
3. Seiple, Samantha (2015). Lincoln's spymaster : Allan Pinkerton, America's first private eye. New York: Scholastic Press. ISBN 978-0-545-70901-9. OCLC 922643750.
4. TM Becker (1974). "The place of private police in society: An area of research for the Social Sciences". Social Problems. 21 (3): 438–453. doi:10.2307/799910. JSTOR 799910.