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Imagine it's March 17, 1874. You and your brother John are hiding out at your cousin's home outside Roscoe, Missouri. A week ago, you staged a robbery at Gad's Hill, but it went wrong, and a Pinkerton agent was killed. You decided it was best to lay low for a while, but about an hour ago, three men claiming to be cattle buyers visited the house. Something about them made you suspicious. They were heavily armed and seemed too well-mannered for cattlemen.
So you and your brother decided to go after them and find out who they really are. You catch up to the men at the top of Chalk Hill Road. Hey, you there, stop! One of the men looks back, but then turns and gives spurs to his horse. I said stop! Your brother takes a shot at the man.
You see his hat fly off his head, but he keeps riding. The other two men come to a stop, then turn around and head back toward you. The older of the two approaches on his horse. Now, why'd you go and shoot? We're just passing through here, mister. No law against that. I told him to stop. He didn't listen. You did, though. Smart decision. Now, tell me what you're doing here. Well, since you're so concerned, we're here to buy cattle from the Sims Ranch. Is that right?
"'Then why are you headed away from the Sims Ranch? It's back that way. "'Oh, is it now? I guess we got turned around, is all. "'You don't look like ranchers to me. "'So drop your guns, throw them in the dirt. "'Or else you cock your shotgun and aim it at the man's chest. "'Or else the man and his friend exchange looks. "'The older one nods and they drop their guns on the ground.'
As they do, you notice that one of the guns is a British tranter revolver. Now that there's a pretty fancy weapon for a ranch man. Fess up. Who are you really? Pinkerton? Maybe you haven't heard the news. Pinkertons and sheriff's deputies aren't welcome in these parts. You turned your brother. Go after that runaway. I'll cover these two.
Suddenly, the man on the chestnut horse whips out a small Smith & Wesson from his coat. And before you even notice what's happening, he shoots and misses. You fire back and catch him in the shoulder, but his horse is spooked and sprints off into the woods. His companion takes off in the same direction. Come on, John, let's go after him. You chase after the man on the chestnut horse while your brother exchanges gunfire with the other man. But then suddenly, the shooting stops.
You turn back to see your brother has killed the other man, but he's not in great shape either. John! John, you're hit! Your brother falls backward off his horse and onto the dusty road. You realize you're all alone. You're pretty sure your brother and another Pinkerton are dead. You don't want to be next.
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From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. In the mid-19th century, after working as spies for the Union during the Civil War, Alan Pinkerton and his agents shifted their focus to hunting the nation's most notorious Wild West outlaws, like Jesse James and Butch Cassidy in The Sundance Kid.
Along the way, they established themselves as the nation's best-known crime fighters, a reputation that was bolstered by the best-selling books Alan Pinkerton wrote about his adventures and those of his detectives. But after Alan Pinkerton died in 1884, his sons William and Robert took over the business.
Before long, Pinkerton's sons shifted the agency's focus again, away from hiring out detectives and undercover operatives to fight crime, to increasingly providing guards and watchmen for railroads, mines, and factories. And soon, these guards of the agency's new protective arm became enmeshed in some of the nation's biggest labor battles. Pinkertons became feared anti-labor spies and strikebusters, and a tool for wealthy corporate barons seeking to undermine labor activists.
As a result of the brutal and sometimes deadly methods that Pinkertons employed in these disputes, they began to attract scrutiny from union leaders, the press, and federal regulators. And after Pinkerton guards were blamed for the deaths of innocent people during labor strikes, the agency's reputation took a hit. The word Pinkerton began to evoke a mercenary thug. And as time went on, the agency struggled to reclaim its former reputation and the public's trust.
This is Episode 2 of our three-part series on the Pinkerton Detective Agency, Brothers and Sons. In the years after the Civil War, the Pinkerton Detective Agency maintained a near monopoly as the nation's best-known investigative force. And the agency's founder, Alan Pinkerton's personal reputation soared. He was often referred to in newspapers as Alan Pinkerton Celebrated Detective.
One article credited Pinkerton with having recovered more than $1 million over the years for one of his most trusting clients, the Adams Express Company. The article also gushed about Pinkerton's Civil War spying, saying that during the war he rendered many important services to the country, having charge of the Secret Service.
And of course, Pinkerton didn't shy away from this glowing PR. In 1868, he sent several newspapers copies of letters he'd exchanged with Samuel Felton, the railroad president who'd hired Pinkerton to protect President-elect Lincoln back in 1861. The result was a series of flattering stories about Pinkerton's success in breaking up the so-called Baltimore Plot to assassinate Lincoln.
All across the country, the press loved Pinkerton's stories, which made for great headlines, and newspapers themselves contributed to the mystique of the bold Pinkerton operatives, depicting them as hell-bent on rounding up gangs like the Reno brothers and protecting the railroads from thieves.
the most notorious of which were Jesse James and his brother Frank, who often partnered with brothers Jim, John, and Cole Younger. The James and Younger boys had been guerrilla fighters for the South during the Civil War and remained sympathetic to the former Confederacy. They terrorized small towns throughout Missouri in the late 1860s and early 1870s, robbing banks and trains and killing anyone who got in their way.
In early 1874, the Adams Express Company once again hired Pinkerton to find the men who kept robbing their trains. And in March, Pinkerton sent Agent Joseph Wicher to Liberty, Missouri, to investigate. Wicher hoped to infiltrate the gang by pretending to be an itinerant farm worker. He checked in with the local sheriff's office before riding toward the James family farm. The next day, his body was found by the side of the road.
Though Witcher's killers were never identified, Alan Pinkerton suspected the James Younger gang, and one newspaper claimed there was no doubt in the minds of the people of Clay County that Witcher was murdered by one of the James boys. Days later, Pinkerton sent another agent and two deputies to Missouri. On March 16, 1874, the three men, pretending to be cattle buyers, were confronted by Jim and John Younger on horseback.
A wild shootout erupted on the side of Chalk Hill Road, and within minutes, John Younger and one of the Pinkerton deputies was dead. Pinkerton agent Louis Lull was shot and died the next day. That left Pinkerton furious that the James gang was responsible for the death of his agents. He continued to pursue the gang even after the Adams Express Company decided to cut its losses and stop paying the agency.
But finally, in January of 1875, a Pinkerton posse raided the James family farm in Clay County, Missouri. One member of the posse tossed an explosive device through a window of the family home. It exploded, killing Jesse's eight-year-old half-brother and badly injuring his mother.
In the wake of this boy's death, many condemned the Pinkertons' aggressive tactics and sympathized with the James Younger gang, who were becoming rural folk heroes. And Jesse James stoked the public outrage. He wrote to newspapers and flaunted his infamy. During one train robbery, he told the engineer, "'Tell Alan Pinkerton and his detectives to look for us in hell.'"
But Pinkerton refused to back down, writing, The James and Youngers are desperate men. When we meet, it must be the death of one or both of us. Into the late 1870s, Alan Pinkerton continued to recover from the effects of the stroke he had suffered in 1869. While his sons took on more day-to-day management of the agency, Pinkerton turned to writing. Still partially paralyzed on one side, he dictated stories to his secretary about his and his agent's heroic deeds.
His first book, The Expressman and the Detective, was published in 1874. It was an account of his first big bust working for the Adams Express Company. A year later, he published The Somnambulist and the Detective, which sold 15,000 copies in its first few months. Many books would follow, including The Spy of the Rebellion, his account of the Baltimore Plot, and his Civil War espionage.
Pinkerton called these best-selling books non-fiction and insisted that the events he depicted actually transpired. They were well-reviewed in the newspapers and helped shape the public's perception of the iconic hard-boiled detective. But over time, readers and critics came to suspect that the author had taken liberties with the facts.
Pinkerton stood by his stories, but future historians would reveal that he and the ghostwriters he dictated his books to often stretched the truth, presenting exaggerated and semi-fictional accounts of his exploits.
But one thing that was absolutely true was the rigor required to run the agency. While Alan Pinkerton published books, his sons, William and Robert, took on the day-to-day responsibilities. William took charge of the Chicago office, and Robert started running things in New York. The sons quickly discovered that the family business was struggling financially, and in fact was on the verge of bankruptcy. Despite the positive publicity and the success of their cases, business had been hurt by a nationwide depression.
But in other instances, costs rose when Alan Pinkerton, determined to bring criminals to justice, sometimes obsessively kept agents on a case even after a bank or railroad company stopped paying for his services.
So to improve the agency's finances, Pinkerton's sons pushed their father to expand the business beyond investigating crimes. They saw an opportunity for the agency to provide security for railroads, mines, and factories. And soon they would hire scores of new employees as guards and watchmen as they established a new protective patrol department, which proved a lucrative enterprise. In the hands of Pinkerton's sons, company finances improved, and the agency became busier than ever and increasingly controversial.
Imagine it's a cool spring afternoon in early March 1876. You're an undercover Pinkerton detective posing as a coal miner in the Shenandoah Mountains of central Pennsylvania. You're walking down the dusty main street of the gritty village of Gerardville on your way to a tavern called the Hibernian House.
For more than a year, you've been working to infiltrate the Molly Maguires, a secretive group of Irish labor activists who've turned to violence and sabotage in their fight for better pay and working conditions. You've been providing information to the coal company about the Mollies, but you recently learned rumors have been spreading that you might be a spy.
So you have to find a way to prove your loyalty and maintain your cover. Today, you've decided to confront the powerful leader of the local Molly Maguires, John Kehoe, a fellow Irish immigrant and tavern owner known as King of the Mollies. Kehoe has been telling other miners that you're a bad seed. And one source told you that he even ordered his men to kill you.
So as you enter Kehoe's Tavern, all heads turn and the place gets quiet. Feels like you've just walked into a lion's den. Hello, Jack. I hear you've been spreading some rumors about me. Can we talk? Well, look who it is. The mysterious man from... Oh, where did you say you were born? The old country, same as you. Same as me, you say. I came during the famine, but it's never been clear when you came over or why...
And what you did before, you graced us with your presence. Oh, it's no mystery. I emigrated after the Civil War, worked in New York, and then, and then, you just show up here one day in cold country. And before you know it, my men are getting arrested, testifying against each other, charged with murder. Who are you really?
You know Kehoe isn't to be trifled with. You've seen him turn ruthless in an instant. So now you're worried you may not make it out of this tavern alive. What are you asking me, Jack? Just come out and say it. I've got nothing to hide. Well, fair enough. Here's what I think. I think you're working for the other side, for those rotten coal barons. I even think you're a detective. We're making progress, getting the coal company's attention, but now the papers, they're calling us ruffians and red-handed assassins.
"'all since you walked through those doors. "'Oh, it's not true, Jack, and you know it. "'I'm as loyal to the cause as you are. "'Is that so? "'Can you prove you haven't been snitchy on us "'to that mine owner, Gowan? "'How am I supposed to do that "'in one of your backroom trials?'
You've heard about Kehoe's unofficial trials. It's a risky proposition to subject yourself to an interrogation, but at this point, you may have no choice. You're willing to be interrogated by me and my men. Name the time and place. All right, then. Meet me back here tomorrow, one o'clock, and we'll get to the bottom of this. Maybe you can prove me wrong, but you might want to pay a visit to Father O'Connor first and give your last confession.
For two years, you've worked hard to earn the trust of these men, working the mines with them, getting to know their families, going to Mass and befriending their priests. You've even participated in a few dangerous raids to try and prove your fealty. But you realize they might be on to you. It could be time to leave Shenandoah coal country before it's too late.
In the early 1870s, violence and vandalism erupted in central Pennsylvania coal country. Coal miners protested the low wages, long hours, and dangerous conditions they faced working for Franklin B. Gowan, head of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal Company. Gowan hired the Pinkerton Agency to investigate disruptive labor activists, most of them Irish immigrants who belonged to a secret society called the Molly Maguires.
Pinkerton turned to James McParland, a tough and witty Irishman and ex-cop. Using the alias James McKenna, McParland set about infiltrating the Molly Maguires and its parent organization, the Ancient Order of the Hibernians, an Irish Catholic fraternity.
It took months of undercover work before McParland was admitted into the Mollies. He then learned their coded greetings and secret handshakes and worked alongside them in the dangerous coal mines. All the while, though, he submitted reports to his real boss using secret drop spots. And when he was accused of being a spy, he fought back and convinced the leaders of the Mollies that he was loyal to their cause, at one point even agreeing to an informal trial to prove he was not a detective.
After more than two years of dangerous undercover work, McParland finally collected enough evidence for authorities to bring charges against Jack Kehoe and other leaders of the Molly Maguires. In early 1876, scores of Mollies were arrested and charged with beating or killing mine superintendents, derailing railroad cars, burning coal tipples, and destroying mining equipment.
McParland gave damning testimony at their trials, facing men who once trusted him. Dozens of Mollies were convicted, and 20 were hanged, including Jack Kehoe, who was executed in June of 1877.
While historians have since questioned the true extent of the Mollies' criminal activity, at the time, the highly publicized case generated a lot of new business for the Pinkertons, helping restore the agency to financial solvency. But it also highlighted the agency's growing allegiance with big business. They were now firmly in bed with coal titans, railroad bosses, and bankers.
Critics began to view them as anti-labor and a private army for the capitalists. And soon, the Pinkerton agency would give their critics even more reason for distrust. American History Tellers is sponsored by Audible. Do you remember radio dramas, The Shadow, Orson Welles' War of the Worlds? With just a few sound effects, they could transport you anywhere. That's the power of listening, a direct line to your imagination. And that's why Audible is such a great place to let your imagination soar.
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In the late 1870s, many Americans faced terrible working conditions and long hours. The average workday was 10 hours a day, six days a week, and pay was low. Labor unrest in the coal and railroad industries escalated as workers across the nation pushed for better wages and a shorter eight-hour workday, while corporations pushed back, cracking down on unionization and labor reforms.
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 saw rail workers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia walk off the job and in some cases vandalize rail lines in protest. In Redding, Pennsylvania, the state militia fired on striking workers and killed at least a dozen people. And right in the middle of all of these labor disputes was the Pinkerton Detective Agency. By now, William and Robert Pinkerton were exerting more influence on the business.
Robert lobbied to continue expanding the company's protective patrol arm, which provided guards and watchmen to companies, towns, racetracks, factories, and railroads. This expansion established two tiers within the agency. The top tier included well-trained investigators and detectives. The other included the guards and watchmen of the protective department, many of them temporary employees on short-term assignments.
But Alan Pinkerton had initially resisted this turn away from the company's previous role as frontier lawman, and for good reason. Into the 1880s, bandits on horseback continued to plague banks and railroads. Many of these criminals formed gangs, including the Burrough Brothers of Alabama, the Daltons of Kansas, and the Sontags of California, and, of course, the James Brothers.
Alan Pinkerton had continued to pursue his vendetta against them and occasionally sent agents out after them when he received new information. But despite his best efforts, he never managed to catch them. Still, their fate was sealed in 1882 when a fellow gang member killed Jesse and Frank surrendered, finally crushing the James Younger gang for good.
But while Pinkerton's sons, William and Robert, had cut their teeth chasing bandits on horseback, by the early 1880s, they knew that risky side of the business was in decline. They urged their father to let them move the agency further into the security business. They also expanded their personal reputations as lawmen by taking on overseas work, and William made a name for himself hunting down thieves in Europe.
So before long, Pinkerton's sons were leading the agency out of the Wild West era and to greater heights and international acclaim. But in the meantime, their father, Alan Pinkerton, had grown frail and sickly. He and his wife, Joan, spent much of their time on the large estate they'd built outside Chicago, called the Larches. There, they entertained visitors, including former President Ulysses S. Grant and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt.
And despite his poor health, Pinkerton would not relinquish control of his business. He still visited his Chicago office often and continued to act as a leader of the agency, firing off blustery letters to his sons and to various satellite offices. One lingering sticking point between Allen and his sons was the hiring of female detectives. In an 1881 letter, Allen expressed frustration that the agency wasn't hiring more women.
He wrote a set of instructions for the type of women to look for, explaining the ideal female agent should be 35 years old, an easy talker, about 5'6 with dark hair, clarifying, I don't think blonde would do. He also joked that any female agent they hired should be single, but if married, her husband must be dead.
But a few years later, in 1883, Alan's son Robert became the official superintendent of the New York office, and he resisted his father's call to hire more women. Alan scolded him for being disrespectful, telling Robert he could only call the shots after I'm dead and the sod is growing over my grave. It was only a year later, when Alan Pinkerton was walking down a Chicago sidewalk, that he fell and bit his tongue.
He developed gangrene and died on July 1, 1884, at the age of 64. He was buried in the family plot in Chicago beside his favorite female detective, Kate Warren. Allen's wife, Joan, died two years later and was buried in a plot on her husband's other side.
After their father's death, Pinkerton's sons would launch the company into a new era, shifting even further from frontier justice into the business of labor crackdowns and strike breaking. They opened new field offices in Boston, Kansas City, and Portland, Oregon, and they continued to expand the agency's protective arm by supplying armed watchmen to protect company property during labor strikes. Within just a few years, William and Robert Pinkerton realized that this had become the most profitable part of their business.
But they soon found out it could be just as deadly as chasing bandits. Imagine it's late afternoon on May 3rd, 1886. You and a co-worker are picketing outside McCormick Harvester, a huge complex of factories and brick warehouses in southwest Chicago. Two days ago, you joined tens of thousands of workers across the city who all walked off the job to support the push for an eight-hour workday.
It feels like the labor movement is finally gaining momentum, and you're hoping your bosses at McCormick might actually be willing to address your demands. So today, you're back on the picket line. You'd hope to hear German newspaper editor and labor activist August Spies give a speech. But today's crowd is bigger, louder, and angrier. And Spies has been drowned out by the chants and taunts being hurled at the company guards.
You also notice there are Pinkertons patrolling the factory gates, swinging clubs at any strikers within reach. You turn to your friend. You know, I heard some scabs walked off the job yesterday, joined the picket line. Old man McCormick can't hold out much longer. He can't run a factory if everyone's on strike. Yeah, but the Pinkertons just keep bringing in more scabs. If we want to get McCormick's attention, we'll have to stop them from getting in and out of the factory. Those Pinkertons are a real problem. Bullies and thugs, if you ask me.
They're basically a secret police force. Enemies of the working man. Remember last year's strike? One of them shot and killed that old man. Yeah, I heard some of the other guys saying they'd like to see the Pinkertons become corpses. Well, there's the end of Dave Bell. His rotten scab should be coming out soon. Crowds start surging toward the factory gates, pulling you and your friend along with it, as some protesters start throwing stones at the factory windows. We should pull back. We're going to get crushed.
A large group of scabs emerge from the gates. Ingridens with clubs in their hands and a few armed with pistols walk in front of them, pushing the crowd back. "No, this is no good. We ought to get out of here." You whip your head around to see where the gunshots are coming from and realize the police have arrived and are firing into the crowd.
All around you is chaos as strikers, scabs, pinkertons, and police devolve into a melee. You turn back and look for your friend, but he's disappeared in a crush of bodies. As you sprint away, you hope he makes it out alive too. On May 1st, 1886, workers from across the United States staged rallies in support of a formalized eight-hour workday. The event was considered to be the first May Day Parade.
Two days later in Chicago, another rally was held outside the McCormick Harvester Works, a farming equipment manufacturer where at least 1,400 workers were on strike. Thousands of other striking workers from across the city joined the rally. But the event erupted in violence when some protesters began beating Pinkerton guards who were escorting non-union workers out of the factory. Police arrived and fired on the crowd, killing at least four people. And yet there was still more violence to come.
The very next night, over 3,000 people attended a rally at Haymarket Square on Chicago's West Side. Labor leaders gave speeches, including Auguste Spies, a newspaper editor and leader of the International Working People's Association. Another speaker was Albert Parsons, an anarchist newspaper editor and militant labor organizer.
At around 10 p.m., police arrived on the scene and urged the crowd to disperse. But then someone in the crowd threw a homemade bomb. It exploded, killing officers and bystanders. Police opened fire and protesters fired back.
When the smoke cleared, seven policemen and at least a dozen others were dead and scores were injured. Eight labor leaders, including Auguste Spies and Albert Parsons, were arrested, charged with murder, and sentenced to death. From his prison cell, Parsons wrote letters and articles blaming the violent debacle on the dozens of armed Pinkerton thugs who were among the officers who beat striking workers and fired into the crowd.
He wrote, Pinkerton's private army is used against working men and strikers, used to shoot them, to arrest them. This incident came to be known as the Haymarket Massacre. In the aftermath, labor leaders continued to blame Pinkerton guards and watchmen for contributing to escalating labor violence.
But even after this massacre, the Pinkerton agency kept giving opponents ammunition for distrust. In late 1886, a Pinkerton guard shot into a crowd of strikers at Chicago's stockyards and killed a bystander. Months later, another Pinkerton guard fired at striking dock workers outside Jersey City's coal wharfs, killing a 15-year-old boy.
The labor leader Mary Harris, known as Mother Jones, called the Pinkertons ex-convicts and hoodlums. And testifying during the Haymarket trials, a Pinkerton agent admitted that laborers viewed him and his fellow agents as cold-blooded murderers and the worst enemies the working man has.
For William and Robert Pinkerton, this period of turmoil raised questions about the kinds of men they'd been hiring. When their father was running the agency, he paid close attention to staffing decisions. Alan Pinkerton had set high standards for his operatives and wanted his men and women to be pure and above reproach. And according to the guiding principles he drafted in the 1850s, Alan Pinkerton never intended his agency to investigate trade union officers or members in their lawful union activities.
But Allen's sons had long since discarded that restriction, and their business practices called for hiring hundreds of guards and watchmen whose roles did not require the same level of training or expertise as a detective. Internally, these guards were called preventives to distinguish them from the agency's detectives. But in time, that distinction wouldn't matter to labor leaders, newspaper writers, politicians, and religious leaders who all escalated their criticisms of the Pinkertons.
And as laborers continued to strike and lobby for better wages and conditions, the word Pinkerton became synonymous with mercenary, a private soldier or labor spy. The agency now had a reputation as a massive private army on the side of industrialists. But the worst of the violence was yet to come, and this time, it would be Pinkerton blood that was shed.
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In the years following the Haymarket Massacre, working-class Americans continued to lobby and strike for better pay, shorter workdays, and safer jobs. But Robert Pinkerton viewed the nation's labor unrest as an opportunity for growth.
Just as his father once sent detectives to investigate train robberies in small frontier towns with outmanned sheriff's offices, Robert offered to provide far-off companies with scores of Pinkerton guards and watchmen to help protect their property against striking workers and saboteurs. Into the early 1890s, he and his brother William aggressively expanded their work for these companies, essentially providing private police forces for factories, railroads, and mines.
At the same time, a Chicago-based group of wealthy business owners called the Citizens Association had become increasingly troubled by the labor unrest and didn't trust public law enforcement to protect their businesses. They hired Pinkerton spies to go undercover and root out labor agitators by infiltrating trade unions, social clubs, and suspected anarchist groups.
Pinkertons were also enlisted to escort non-union workers, or so-called scabs, to job sites that have been stalled by strikes. Sometimes Pinkerton guards worked as scabs themselves, but many of these Pinkertons were untrained, short-term hires who made $5 a day. Lines were being drawn, and the agency's allegiance with big business continued to draw sharp criticism from men like Terrence Powderly, head of the Knights of Labor Union, who called Pinkertons the enemy of the working class.
Powderly blamed Pinkertons for inciting the violence that led to several deaths during an 1888 strike by Burlington railroad workers. Powderly called armed Pinkerton guards hired assassins who act on the passions of men just as a red flag acts on a bull.
But the protective patrol side of the business continued to grow. Robert would later claim that the agency didn't necessarily plan to profit from the turbulent labor movement, but it was something which had grown around our shoulders. Between 1888 and 1892, William and Robert opened even more field offices in Denver, St. Louis, St. Paul, and Seattle.
And as the tensions between capital and labor continued to mount, the Pinkerton agency was dead center in the conflict. Between 1877 and 1892, Pinkerton teams worked more than 70 labor strikes, from coal mines in Ohio to rail yards in Iowa and docks in New Jersey. In the coal fields of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, Pinkerton guards became a constant presence.
Then, in 1892, a new wave of labor strikes spread across America. Workers in New Orleans, coal miners in Tennessee, railroad switchmen in Buffalo, copper miners in Idaho, they all walked off their jobs in protest.
At Andrew Carnegie's steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, just east of Pittsburgh, manager Henry Frick had slashed wages in response to a decline in steel prices, causing an uproar amongst the workers. Carnegie had claimed to be a pro-labor employer, but was vacationing in Scotland at the time and let Frick decide how to handle the strike. So when the workers walked out, Frick built a barbed wire fence around the plant, then hired Pinkertons to protect it.
When they arrived by boat early on the morning of July 6th, thousands of angry workers were there to greet them. Imagine it's July 6th, 1892. You are a medical student from Chicago, but to earn money during the summer, you signed on to work as a Pinkerton guard at a Pennsylvania steel mill for $2.50 a day.
You left Pittsburgh this morning on a barge full of fellow recruits brought in from Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. The barge has been converted into a makeshift lodging facility with sleeping cots, wooden walls, and a roof. It's stiflingly hot inside as you're being towed upriver by a tugboat. When you reach the town of Homestead, you finally see the steel mill looming up ahead.
You turn to the man beside you, who seems like he belongs in high school. You chatted this morning and learned he was from Brooklyn. He admitted he'd never been out of New York before and never worked as a guard. He's holding tight to a small billy club. His knuckle's white. You point at the mill in the distance. Well, there it is. Our workplace for the next week or so. Looks like a giant furnace. I don't really understand what we're supposed to do here.
as the tugboat guides your barge near the shoreline. You peer out one of the barge's windows and see thousands of angry, striking workers rush toward the waterfront landing area. Oh, guess they're not happy to see us. You turn to your left and see a few of your fellow Pinkerton guards standing up front on the bow. They're armed and shouting at a group of men on shore who are busy pulling back the gangplanks. They're not going to let us land. The young man next to you looks frightened. They have rifles aimed at us.
Well, we've got rifles of our own on the front deck. Let's go grab ourselves some. No, they told me we might have to duck a few bricks or stones. Nobody said anything about guns. I've never even fired a gun.
Oh, I'm bleeding. Help me, please.
You're only a first-year medical student, and you've never treated a gunshot before. You rush to the barge's small galley kitchen and grab some towels. Here, lift up your shirt. Hold this against the wound. Press hard. Please don't let me die here. I didn't sign up for this.
As bullets continue to fly, soon you're rushing to other injured men, tending to their wounds and keeping your head low. But the longest day of your life has just begun. As you take another quick look outside, you see a raft filled with burning timbers floating directly towards you. That's when you hear the explosions. Workers on the dock are throwing dynamite.
On July 6, 1892, 376 part-time Pinkerton guards tried to land in two large barges at Andrew Carnegie's Homestead steel mill. They were met by 6,000 angry, striking steelworkers and their families, who lined the riverbanks and refused to let the Pinkertons disembark. It's unclear who fired first. Both sides would blame the other. But within minutes of the Pinkertons' arrival, a barrage of gunfire erupted, killing men on the boats and on shore.
Enraged workers tried to set the barges on fire or blow them to smithereens with dynamite. They loaded two small cannons with steel scraps and shot at the barges, then poured oil into the water and set the river on fire. Some of the Pinkertons tried to surrender by raising a white flag, but workers on shore shot the flag to ribbons.
After 12 hours of fighting, a union chairman called for a ceasefire, and the Pinkertons were allowed to surrender. As the Pinkerton men were marched through town toward the jailhouse, some were assaulted and severely beaten. In the end, 10 steelworkers and at least three Pinkerton guards died. Scores more were injured. The New York Times declared, "...the events of the day will rank as one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of labor rights."
The news of the violence at the Homestead Mill was so stunning that Congress launched an investigation into the widespread use of private police during labor strikes. U.S. Representative William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska was among those who argued it was the government's job to protect life and property. He stated, Robert and William Pinkerton were vilified in the press.
And it didn't help when the congressional hearings revealed that they had 250 rifles and 500 revolvers at their Chicago office alone. Congress declared that the Pinkertons were indeed a mercenary private police force, but it failed to find that any laws were broken at Homestead, and it cast blame on the inadequacies of local police.
Still, the government had come to a conclusion, and in 1893, Congress passed the Anti-Pinkerton Act, which limited the federal government's ability to hire private armed guards. But this act was largely toothless and left it to the states to decide how to handle the issue. This triggered states to pass a flurry of anti-Pinkerton laws of their own, preventing armed guards from operating in their jurisdictions.
By 1899, 24 states had enacted such laws. And with their reputation battered, the Pinkertons were forced to change their business model once more. They scaled back their protective arm and took on more investigative cases. And this time, bank heists and jewel thieves became a specialty.
As the century came to a close, the area of expertise that had initially made the Pinkertons public heroes still had one last gasp. The nation was moving quickly toward industrialization and was continuing its rapid westward expansion, giving a new generation of train robbers an opportunity. And in 1901, Pinkertons would join the hunt for one of the most infamous gangs in American history.
From Wondery, this is episode two of the Pinkerton Detective Agency from American History Tellers. On the next episode, Pinkerton detectives travel throughout the West in search of the nation's most audacious and elusive bank-robbing desperadoes, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But the agency soon faces new competition with the creation of a federal crime-fighting agency, the Bureau of Investigation. And a Pinkerton operative leaves to write some of the most iconic detective novels in the English language.
If you'd like to learn more about the Pinkertons, we recommend Pinkerton's Great Detective by Bo Riffenberg and Inventing the Pinkertons by Paul O'Hara.
American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham, for Airship. Audio editing by Christian Paraga. Sound design by Molly Bach. Music by Lindsey Graham. This episode is written by Neil Thompson. Edited by Dorian Marina. Produced by Alita Rosansky. Our production coordinator is Desi Blaylock. Managing producer, Matt Kant. Senior managing producer, Ryan Lohr. Senior producer, Andy Herman. And executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman and Marsha Louis for Wondery.
What's up, guys? It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season. And let me tell you, it's too good. And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay? Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation. And I don't mean just friends. I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox. The list goes on. So follow, watch, and listen to Baby. This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.