Allan Pinkerton-The Detective

Allan Pinkerton was a known US detective that was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1819. He is very popular in his time because he is the founder of the well known and first detective agency in the United States, the Pinkerton Agency. At the early age, his father who is a police sergeant died in a battle left the Pinkerton family in great poverty. As Allan grows up, he found a work as a copper or barrel-maker and then joining in Chartism, a group of people who believes in political and social reforms.

The Pinkerton was always associated with security and protection. He had spent his life in many security concerns like private investigations, and personal security. Pinkerton career as a detective started when he emigrate from Scotland to America. The reason why he wanted to go to America is because he wants to escapes imprisonment. And in 1842, he established a copper making shop in Chicago, Illinois. Pinkerton was known to be a savior of slave or he support the anti slavery movements.

He usually uses his shop as an escape route of slave in the said state. In 1849, Pinkerton became the first ever detective in Chicago and in 1950, together with Edward Rucker they build the North-Western police Agency. The said agency was renamed as Pinkerton National Detective Agency. As mentioned in the earlier part of the essay, Pinkerton was very popular in terms of security and surveillance matters. In fact, the methods that he uses in his career as a detective is still being used today in many investigations.

Some of the techniques of Pinkerton in many investigation processes are the “shadowing” and “undercover”. The former also known as surveillance of a suspect which means that the suspect is being monitored in his or her every moves every time while the latter is also known as assuming a role which means that a person is assuming or doing a role in such a way that the suspect will act normal when an investigation is being done. Undercover operations nowadays are very popular in drug cases incidents.

Example of this is when a policeman is under covering his true identity as a policeman and portraying as a buyer of a certain prohibited drug and when the suspect had transaction with the undercover policeman, then this is a very useful evidence for the investigation. The leadership of Pinkerton as a US detective had produced many successful investigations and lessening the crime rate in his time. He was able to stop many assassination attempts especially on the known government officials. He was able to determine a planed and smooth assassination on Abraham Lincoln and was able to hamper the said attempt.

As many writers accounted him as a man of great power of observation and courage (Library, 2007). There were several writings that center the life, career and courage of Pinkerton as a US detective. In 1990, a movie entitled The Rose and The Jackal that was based on the life of Pinkerton was made. The movie was done in the Civil War time and its all about love, drama and spies. From the movie, an assassination attempt was done to the president of the country who is travelling using a train. In the middle of the commute, the train will pass to a wooden bridge.

The plan of the assassination is to plant a bomb at the bottom of the wooden bridge and eventually an accident will cause the death of the president (Kelly, 2008). Pinkerton was able to intercept the assassination attempt of the Confederate by stopping the derailing of the train where the president is and killing the two suspects and warned the president, who is Lincoln that there is a plan to kill him. He was able to stop the attempt. This links to the true story on the attempt to assassinate Lincoln which was able to intercept by Pinkerton (Karesony, 2006).

After this event, Pinkerton was appointed as by Lincoln as the head of the US Secret Service. The said agency is responsible of intercepting many espionage acts during the Civil War. This prevents the War Between the States of America (Kelly, 2008). The main story of the movie is about Pinkerton who was assigned to be a spy against the Confederate. As a secret agent of the country, Pinkerton was able to establish a persona in which the said secret agent had successfully portrayed a simple man in a society so that the Confederate will not suspect him as a spy.

This method can also be seen on the England-secret agent James Bond who does many espionage act to infiltrate or gather some important information from their enemy. Pinkerton uses this method in order for him to know the plans of the Confederate and that he can able to maneuver any possible action that will lead to the fall of his superior who is the president (Karesony, 2006). In the movie, Pinkerton met a beautiful lady who is also a spy but in the Confederate side and Pinkerton eventually fall in love to her.

The story turns on the two main characters, Pinkerton and Rose. Pinkerton faces to challenge, to play the role as a secret agent for Lincoln and his love affair to Rose. Rose eventually attacks the weakness of Pinkerton to be a tool in executing her plan to infiltrate the government of Lincoln (Karesony, 2006). Though this is one of the most popular investigations that were done by Pinkerton in his life, there are also some small profile cases that he was able to solve. Many money and properties from robbery acts were recovered and thieves were successfully traced.

Some of the successful robbery cases the robbery of the Carbondale, Pennsylvania Bank of $40,000, and that of The Adams Express Company of $700,000, on 6 January, 1866, from a train on The New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, and the taking of $300,000 from an express-car on the Hudson River railroad. He also broke up gangs of thieves at Seymour, Indiana, and the “Mollie Maguires” in Pennsylvania. Due to his eagerness and courage, Pinkerton was able to shape the security and investigation process in his time even though high technology gadgets were not available in his time.

Even today, the techniques of Pinkerton are being used to solve many cases and help in the success of investigations like police investigations. The Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation of United States owe many investigation processes that were originated by Pinkerton. He was able to create a tool that can be utilized in solving unsolved crimes and eventually preventing the further occurrence of transgression and organized crimes. References:

Karesony. (2006). The Rose and the Jackal [Electronic Version]. Retrieved February 11, 2008, from http://www. imdb. com/title/tt0098831/ Kelly, M. (2008). A Brief History of the Pinkertons [Electronic Version]. Retrieved February 11, 2008, from http://americanhistory. about. com/od/19thcentur1/a/allan_pinkerton. htm Library, C. (2007). Roots of a Detective [Electronic Version]. Retrieved February 11, 2008, from http://www. crimelibrary. com/gangsters2/pinkerton/