The Pinkertons

A cooper named Allan Pinkerton fell into detective work quite by accident, but he soon found himself in high demand. His foiling of a plot to assassinate President-Elect Abraham Lincoln vaulted him to national renown, and he worked across state lines with government agencies on every level. Guest: Paul O’Hara, Associate Professor of History at Xavier University and author of “Inventing the Pinkertons: Or Spies, Sleuths, Mercenaries, and Thugs; Being a story of the nation’s most famous (and infamous detective agency)” (rebroadcast)