Allen Pinkerton Essay -- essays research papers

Allan Pinkerton , born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1819, emigrated to Chicago. He wasAmericas first private eye. A world of realityy contradictions, he was a conservativewho strongly opposed slavery, a very cautious man who risked his life capturing criminals,a militant labor adapter who suppressed the labor movement, and fought for womensrights to be detectives.During his twenty-eight year career as a private detective, Allan Pinkerton and hisagency investigated over a thousand crimes. Pinkerton was twisty in many dramasof the nineteenth century. Work and the Underground Railroad became his life. ThePinkertons fed and sheltered fugitives in their own home. Pinkerton was a very moralman and despised slavery. The crisis over slavery brought the nation to the brink of theCivil War. The South demanded a guarantee that slavery would continue in the stateswhere it was already established and permitted to mobilize to the Midwest and West. TheSouth also wanted the North to return any slav es who fled there via the UndergroundRailroad. The North wanted to stop the spread of slavery. In 1850 the fleer Slave Actwas passed, which made it a federal crime for slaves to run away and a crime for anyoneto assist them. Allan Pinkerton could be arrested and imprisoned for his involvementin assisting the slaves.When the war began, Allan Pinkerton would finally combine his detective skills withhis abolitionist beliefs. Allan Pinkerton protected Abraham Lincoln against southernradicals, who demanded the Union be dissolved and the Southern states form an independentgovernment. They dislike Lincoln because they feared he would abolish slavery. In 1861,Pinkerton uncovered a plot to assassinate President Lincoln. Pinkerton , with his top agents,posed as Southern sympathizers and found themselves deep down the conspirators. As a spyin the their midst, the plot was uncovered. As President Lincoln changed trains inMaryland on February 22, he would be shot. Some of the guards protect t he Presidentwere also Southern radicals. At the same time there was another plot to blow up the train carrying Lincoln. Once the train was destroyed, they would chop off the telegraph wires andblow up bridges and train tracks to prevent Northern troops entry into Baltimore.If President Lincoln was killed, there would definitely be a civil war. Pinkerton acte... ... he still worked for the government by investigating merchants who werecheating them by selling faulty military supplies.When the war ended, Allan Pinkerton returned to Chicago to build up his privateinvestigation business. On April 14,1865, President Lincoln was assassinated. AllanPinkerton was not there to protect him.The end of the Civil War did not bring peace to America. thither were continuous outburstsand gangs were formed to rob trains. Pinkerton and his agents pursued the outlaws withvengeance, the most famous being the James brothers.In 1869, Allan Pinkerton suffered a stroke, but fought the paralysis. A new ba ttlefieldemerged in the 1870s in the coal mines, steel mills, and factories. The workers weretreated like slaves, and fought back. Pinkerton was employed to end these organizations,to infiltrate, gather evidence, and convict them. A strike broke out in a steel plant, endingin fatalities. Pinkertons reputation was seriously damaged.Allan Pinkerton died in 1884. He was a legend, gaining an international reputation forcrime solving and protection. When the F.B.I. was founded, it was sculpturesque afterthe Pinkertons National Detective Agency.