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The Private Eye has long been a fixture of popular culture - from Sherlock Holmes, to Philip Marlowe, to Jessica Fletcher. But behind the fictional detectives lies a real figure whose influence shaped the very idea of the private investigator: Allan Pinkerton. After fleeing Scotland for the US under murky circumstances in the mid-1800s, he reinvented himself as a crime fighter and founded America’s first detective agency. Soon, his name was everywhere. His agents guarded trains, infiltrated gangs, and uncovered a plot to kill a president.

But how did a poor Scottish immigrant build a private army more powerful than the police?

How did his methodologies shape surveillance, and influence the foundations of the FBI? And what happened when his agents went head-to-head with legendary outlaws like Jesse James or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?

This is a Short History Of The Pinkerton Detective Agency.

A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, a historian, and author of Allan Pinkerton, America’s Legendary Detective and the Birth of Private Security.

Written by Sean Coleman | Produced by Kate Simants | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Katrina Hughes | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Oliver Sanders | Assembly edit by Anisha Deva | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: The Soundhouse Studios

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like to listen to the full story of the Baltimore Plot – when the Pinkerton Agency used cunning, guile, and disguise to foil an attempt on Abraham Lincoln’s life as he travelled to his presidential inauguration. You’ll find it as part of the Detectives Don’t Sleep series from the Noiser Network. Follow this link to listen right away: https://www.noiser.com/detectives-dont-sleep/the-baltimore-plot

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