Stone Cold Pinkerton

Nikita Petrov

Senior Division Inidividual Website

Word Count:1127

Total Time of Multimedia:0

Word Count of Process Paper: 498

 Historical Argument:

In the 1850s, a Scottish-born cooper named Allan Pinkerton met an attorney named

Edward Rucker in Chicago. To cash in on the lack of investigation powers within the country,

the two created the Northwest Police Agency. With their unique set of skills, the two quickly

expanded their business and became one of the first private investigation agencies now

known as the Pinkertons. The Pinkertons became pioneers on the new frontier of Private

Security. In their prime, they’ve managed to help the U.S. with tracking outlaws, cracking

down protests, and jump started a market of Private investigation agencies.

I initially got the Idea to do the Pinkertons because I was looking at Pinkerton

Detectives, and I noticed that their story are set in the frontiers of law. I quickly associated

the two together and figured that a project on the Pinkerton Detectives would fit the theme of

Fontiers well.

My research mainly revolved around basing information from Pinkerton Agency’s own

claims and searching for any background information to make sure I remove bias from their

claims. The Background information can be either the setting, or just other viewpoints from

several events that took place.

I used a variety of sources ranging from maps, timelines, newspapers, and court

documents from the time. One of the best source, is a book written by the founder of the

Pinkerton Agency Allan Pinkerton, called “Spies of the Rebellion”. The book talked about the

Lincoln escort in detail, and was proven to be very useful.

The book might’ve been the most useful, actually. Because it also talks about the
espionage systems that were used within the Pinkerton Agency and how it was deployed in

America, including Civil war or just catching criminals in general.

During the project, I’ve come to learn that the Pinkertons are quite scummy people at

times, which is quite contrary to their usual depiction of being the just law. In addition, I’ve

come to an understanding that the NHD website builder is a bit frustrating.

The presentation itself did not take a long time to create, it took roughly a week. The

thing that took the longest time to create was gathering all the sources and organizing them

into one big continuous story that is coherent. I’ve learned how to minimize the work needed

for organizing by either splitting work between documents and gathering sources at a much

more efficient rate.

My topic relates to the theme of New Frontiers in History because the Pinkertons were

one of the first ever organizations to provide private security. They basically set the

framework for all private security organizations in the future.

This topic is important in history because it helped America shape laws related to private

arms, and explored the vast market of hired guns which would be heavily used in the future

by all countries in the world.