Inventing the Pinkertons, or, Spies, sleuths, mercenaries, and thugs
Subtitle: being a story of the nation's most famous (and infamous) detective agency
By: S. Paul O'Hara
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 194
ISBN-13: 9781421420561
Subjects: Private investigators; History; Pinkerton's National Detective Agency; Industrial relations; Labor
Other titles: Spies, sleuths, mercenaries, and thugs
Description: "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, [this book examines] how the histories of American capitalism, industrial folklore, and the nation-state converged"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction. Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, or heroes and villains of the Gilded Age; title: Chapter one. In which Allan Pinkerton created his agency; title: Chapter two. In which Pinkerton men become the antiheroes of the middle west; title: Chapter three. In which Pinkerton agents infiltrate secret societies; title: Chapter four. In which the Pinks serve as a private army for capital; title: Chapter five. In which Pinkerton myrmidons invade Homestead; title: Chapter six. In which the disgrace of Pinkertonism is subjected to public scrutiny; title: Chapter seven. In which the frontier closes and Pinkerton practices are exposed; title: Chapter eight. In which the modern state takes on the duties of the Pinkerton agency; title: Conclusion. Pinkerton's Inc.