Pinkerton (detective agency)

Pinkerton

Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Private security contractor
Founded	Chicago, Illinois, U.S. (c. 1850; 174 years ago)
Founder	Allan Pinkerton
Headquarters	Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.
Area served	Worldwide
Services	Security management, risk management consulting, investigations, employment screening, protective services, security, crisis management, intelligence services
Parent	Securitas AB (1999–present)
Website	www.pinkerton.com

Pinkerton is a private security guard and detective agency established around 1850 in the United States by Scottish-born American cooper Allan Pinkerton and Chicago attorney Edward Rucker as the North-Western Police Agency, which later became Pinkerton & Co. and finally the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. At the height of its power from the 1870s to the 1890s, it was the largest private law enforcement organization in the world.^[1] It is currently a subsidiary of Swedish-based Securitas AB.^[2]

Pinkerton became famous when he claimed to have foiled the Baltimore Plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln in 1861. Lincoln later hired Pinkerton agents to conduct espionage against the Confederacy and act as his personal security during the American Civil War.^[3][4]

Following the Civil War, the Pinkertons began conducting operations against organized labor.^[5] During the labor strikes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, businesses hired the Pinkerton Agency to infiltrate unions, supply guards, keep strikers and suspected unionists out of factories, and recruit goon squads to intimidate workers.^[6] During the Homestead Strike of 1892, Pinkerton agents were called in to reinforce the strikebreaking measures of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, who was acting on behalf of Andrew Carnegie, the head of Carnegie Steel.^[7] Tensions between the workers and strikebreakers erupted into violence, which led to the deaths of three Pinkerton agents and nine steelworkers. ^[8][9] During the late nineteenth century, the Pinkertons were also hired as guards in coal, iron, and lumber disputes in Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, and were involved in other strikes such as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.^[10]

During the 20th century, Pinkerton rebranded itself as a personal security and risk management firm. The company has continued to exist in various forms to the present day and is now a division of the Swedish security company Securitas AB, operating as Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations, Inc., doing business as Pinkerton Corporate Risk Management. ^[11] The former Pinkerton Government Services division, PGS, now operates as Securitas Critical Infrastructure Services, Inc..^[12]