Pinkerton Agency

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Inquisitor Posted: Tue, Mar 4 2008 10:55 AM

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Can anyone provide me with some information on it? To what extent was it a state vassal, to what extent a private entity, whether its actions were justifiable &c. 

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Grant replied on Fri, Mar 7 2008 3:50 AM

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I found some interesting-looking articles, but nothing free:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7162(198807)498%3C11%3APSAR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0018-246X(198603)29%3A1%3C87%3APDAALD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W 

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=info:J3lxqX5rrOEJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&lr=&output=viewport&shm=1&pg=1 

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ThorsMitersaw replied on Tue, Mar 25 2008 12:54 PM

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All of what I have read on the Pinkerton Agency, which is not a scholarly butt-load I admit, has led me to conclude they were like just about any other agency or business. A mixed bag. Taking advantage of state priveledge and emplyed by private individuals and organizations. They were eventually restructered and I believe renamed and then bought ought by Securitas which last I checked is the largest provider of private security in the world. 

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DBratton replied on Tue, Mar 25 2008 1:30 PM

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The Pinkerton name is still around. When I worked for Compaq in the 90's all the security guards were Pinkertons.

Inquisitor:

To what extent was it a state vassal...

Must have been a considerable extent. There was actually an Anti-Pinkerton Act passed by Congress in 1893 forbidding Pinkerton employees from working for the US government. 

There is a Wiki article about them.