Secret Societies: The Pinkerton National Detective Agency

The Pinkertons! It is not your usual thought when secret societies come to mind but, when talking about secret societies it is important to realize that some societies are so secret that their very existence is brought to question, others rely on keeping membership rolls secret, but most were organizations that simply kept some of their activities or inner workings secret. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency qualifies on several fronts as a secret society.

Allen Pinkerton didn’t create an ordinary detective agency. His agents were spies for the Union Army. The Pinkertons were the first Secret Service, charged with protecting the president. After the war, many employees of Pinkerton's National Detective Agency were hired to protect businesses. It is easy to see why the identities of Pinkerton’s operatives required secrecy and why they kept so many of their activities secret. If an agent’s identity were known it could very well cost his or her life.

Yes, I said her life. In my Nessa Donnelly mysteries I draw on the real life history of the women Pinkertons who risked everything to preserve the Union. The intrepid lady detectives of the Pinkerton National Security Agency worked under dangerous, difficult circumstances. The job they did was critical to the agency and to the security of the nation. Throughout his life Allen Pinkerton defended his decision to hire women, and argued the necessity of lady detectives in collecting information inaccessible to men. It was a battle he was unable to win.

Once his sons took over the agency, they got rid of the women agents. They also took the company in a different and more controversial direction. Pinkertons were primarily used as the muscle behind big business. Pinkertons were charged with infiltrating and bringing down the labor unions, protecting non-union laborers, and stopping labor violence (by force if necessary).

Branching out into pseudo-military and police work also raised the level of secrecy and the number of agents needed. At one time there were more Pinkerton agents in the United States than there were soldiers in the United States Army. These agents were responsible for the massacre of union strikers and the assassinations of labor leaders. Behind the scenes, the Pinkerton agents were hired for their brains, but in the coal camps and factories, the face of Pinkerton was often a thug.

The secret, military, brutish nature of the Pinkerton agency was worrisome to government officials. Pinkerton's private police force in Pennsylvania created a labor incident that cost the lives of 16 men and required the state militia to be called out to restore order.

Ohio banned them from working in the state for many years because they feared the company might move to take over state government.

Other states placed restrictions on how many agents could work in the state and began to require that all private detectives apply for a state license. States also began to pass laws restricting the activities of agents and protecting the rights of laborers.

When your PI gets into trouble with the law or has his license suspended, just remember if it hadn’t been for the secret activities of the Pinkerton agents, today’s PI’s might not need a license.

Kentucky's Nineteenth Century Secret Societies

I have decided to start a new feature in my blog discussing Kentucky's Secret Societies. Anyone who has followed me knows a little about the Knights of the Golden Circle, who figure prominently in CIRCLE OF DISHONOR. The KGC was just one of the many organizations active at that time.The Nineteenth Century was home to a plethora of Secret and Semi-secret Societies. These societies rose in membership and power in Kentucky as the political structure of the state divided and rushed headlong into Civil War.

No state was more divided, more pivotal, or more ill equipped to deal with war than Kentucky. That fact is perhaps best demonstrated by the formation of Kentucky’s shadow legislature, which formed for the express purpose of keeping a Confederate government in Kentucky during the Civil War.

Secret Societies were not all related to the hostilities that threatened to dissolve the United States into two nations. The Nineteenth Century was a time of rapid growth in these types of organizations in Europe and the Americas. Many scholars attribute the spread to the repressive nature of the Victorian Age combined with the rapid social changes forced by industrialization. The world was changing. Immigration, secessionism, industrialization, and social reform placed pressure on every community. Kentucky was ill prepared for change as it shifted from its former place as a western frontier state and struggled with its new identity as a hinge pin in the conflict between slave and free states.

Whatever the problem facing Kentuckians, for good or evil, a society formed to fill the gap. Most were benevolent organizations taking on the monumental task of improving conditions in their communities. Some were church or community outreach societies where members banded together to perform charitable work, often anonymously, within their community. The level of secrecy each organization kept varied by the wishes of organizers or the needs of members.

Kentucky harbored societies with far ranging goals. Men and women organized to explore the occult, engage in acts of evil, and gain mystic power. There were societies planning overthrow the government, establish a new world order, and defend white supremacy. Kentuckians also banned together to fight slavery, protect homes and families, maintain peace, and above all survive the long, bloody war that touched every life in the nation. The history of these societies play a part in the history of every county. Together they tell us a great deal about where we came from and who we are as Kentuckians.

Secret societies divided along the lines of color, creed, political affiliation, opinion on social ills, and ethnic origin. To understand why they had such an enormous growth in the 1800's, we must look at them through these lenses. We must consider their successes and failures, the impact on the time, and why some of them no longer exist. If the feature is successful, we may also take a look at those that remain and the changes that have taken place within their ranks to keep them active today. I invite you to step back in time with me as I explore this aspect of Kentucky's past.