| rdfs:comment | - An agent of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, "Pinkertons" for short, "Pinks" to their enemies. Not to be confused with Pinkos. Founded in the 1850s by Allan Pinkerton, the Pinkertons were often hired by corporations such as the railroad companies to investigate crimes against them and the activities of labor movements. Made famous by their protection of Lincoln from an assassination attempt prior to his taking the oath of office. In the 1870s, they added government work to their portfolio, as the Department of Justice didn't have the infrastructure to do massive investigations on its own. (This work dried up in 1893 with the passage of the "Anti-Pinkerton Act", which prevented the US government from directly hiring Pinkerton agents.)
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| abstract | - An agent of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, "Pinkertons" for short, "Pinks" to their enemies. Not to be confused with Pinkos. Founded in the 1850s by Allan Pinkerton, the Pinkertons were often hired by corporations such as the railroad companies to investigate crimes against them and the activities of labor movements. Made famous by their protection of Lincoln from an assassination attempt prior to his taking the oath of office. In the 1870s, they added government work to their portfolio, as the Department of Justice didn't have the infrastructure to do massive investigations on its own. (This work dried up in 1893 with the passage of the "Anti-Pinkerton Act", which prevented the US government from directly hiring Pinkerton agents.) In addition to their notorious and much-reviled strikebreaking work, the Pinkertons were also active in chasing down outlaws who'd pulled train jobs or major bank robberies. And if you were wealthy enough, you could hire them for regular detective work as well. The Pinks were well known for brutality and ruthlessness in their methods; in fiction, even when they're pursuing more laudable goals, this tends to give an unfavorable color to their portrayal. It's believed the phrase "private eye" comes from the Pinkerton Agency's symbol, an open eye (which rather hilariously came to look like the CBS eye in later years). Dashiell Hammett was a former Pinkerton agent, and used his experience to inform his stories. After the 1930s, the Pinkerton Agency largely concerned itself with security services. They were bought and merged with a European security company called Securitas AG, they're now known as Securitas Security Services USA, Inc. Poetically, Securitas is now the subject of unionization attempts. Compare and contrast with Private Military Contractors. Hilariously unrelated to Real Men Wear Pink. Examples of Pinkerton detectives in fiction:
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