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[[File:Pinkertons.jpg|thumbnail|300px|left|<i>Inventing the Pinkertons</i> by S. Paul O'Hara]]
In 1850, Allan Pinkerton founded a dectective agency that would grow into Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Pinkerton agency is easily the most famous and infamous security guard and detective agency in United States history. Pinkerton originally created the agency to help railroad companies to control and the employees and catch train robbers. But over time, the Pinkerton Agency developed an intimate relationship with the federal government and as this partnership grew the Pinkertons role grew dramatically. This relationship started after the Pinkertons provided personal security to Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. By the 1870s, the Pinkertons were investigating and capturing people who violated federal law including outlaws such as Jesse James, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on behalf of the Department of Justice. The Pinkertons are probably most notorious for their role in suppressing labor in the last twenty five year of the 19th Century.
S. Paul O'Hara's new book <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1421420562/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1421420562&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=7319f5ed3bf6fb980909977ac68f7ddc Inventing the Pinkertons; or, Spies, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs]</i> published by [https://www.press.jhu.edu/ John Hopkins University Press] attempts to separate the myth from reality and paint the real picture of the most famous private detective agency in United States history. JHU Press states O'Hara explains who "American capitalists used the Pinkertons to enforce new structures of economic and political order." Professor Maury Klein had said that the book not only explains"the convoluted tale" of the Pinkertons, but reads "like a detective novel."
