Allan Pinkerton

America's Legendary Detective and the Birth of Private Security

Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones

$59.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Georgetown University Press
02 June 2025

History of the Americas; Espionage & secret services; Military intelligence; Labour economics

A deeply researched account of the life and legacy of the man who defined the profession of private eye

Allan Pinkerton, the world's most famous private detective, has been an enduring source of fascination since the nineteenth century. But the details of his impact, business empire, and private life have been incomplete.

Drawing on overlooked primary sources, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones provides an authoritative account of the man and the Pinkerton National Detective Agency (PNDA). It is the story of how PNDA's founder and its successive generations of heirs put it at the center of American history for decades. A small sampling of Pinkerton's activities includes providing intelligence in the Civil War, pursuing high-profile outlaws like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and protecting scabs in the Homestead lockout, for which they became notorious. The book continues telling PNDA's history into the twentieth century and analyzes the legacies of Pinkertonism up to the present.

General readers as well as scholars of American history will be fascinated by this rich new portrait of Pinkerton's accomplishments, controversies, and contradictions.

By: Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones
Imprint: Georgetown University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 590g
ISBN: 9781647125844
ISBN 10: 1647125847
Pages: 328
Publication Date: 02 June 2025
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Gorbals Man 2. The Revolutionary 3. Escape to America 4. Pinkerton & Co. 5. The Baltimore Plot to Assassinate Lincoln 6. A Secret Service 7. The Secret Service 8. Labor Violence a New Source of Income 9. McParland Tilts at the Molly Maguires 10. Inventing Anti-Communism 11. Inventing Private Detection 12. Jesse James as Robin Hood 13. The Death of the Founder 14. Odyssey of the Sons 15. Pinkertons in the Haymarket Trial 16. The Homestead Lockout and the End of Legitimacy 17. Anti-Pinkerton Legislation 18. Sundance and the Setting of the Western Sun 19. The Trial of the Wobblies20. The Verdict 21. The BofI: Challenge and Succession 22. Private Rivals 23. Of Harvard and Hammett 24. The LaFollette Inquiry 25. A Corporate Era 26. Who Was the Greatest Detective of Them All? Conclusion List of Primary Source Archives and of Abbreviations Used in the Notes Notes Bibliography Index About the Author

Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones is the author or editor of nearly twenty books, including The Nazi Spy Ring in America (GUP 2020) and A Question of Standing: The History of the CIA (2022).