August 25 - An Historic Irony

On this day in Labor History the year was 1819.  That was the day at Allan Pinkerton was born in Glasgow, Scotland.  His father was a policeman, who died while Allan was a boy.  This left the family in poverty.  As a young man he became involved in the Chartism movement.  This reform movement hoped to expand the political rights of the working class in Great Britain. Allan had to flee his homeland to avoid arrest because of his involvement.  This led him to Chicago.  It is a great historic irony that Allan Pinkerton came to the United States because of his involvement in a working class cause.  Today Pinkertons are often considered some of the greatest armed foes against unionism in US labor history.  In Chicago, Pinkerton became involved in law enforcement and then formed his own detective agency.  The Pinkerton National Detective Agency made its name working against railway thefts.  But it became most notorious for opposing the labor movement.  Pinkerton spies infiltrated labor meetings for company owners, worked as hired guns to stop union organizing and protected strike breakers.  Pinkerton died in 1884, and passed the agency to his sons. During the 1890s there were more Pinkertons and reserves than the standing army of the United States. One of the most famous battles between Pinkertons and workers occurred at the 1892 strike against Carnegie steel in Homestead, Pennsylvania.  There Seven workers and two Pinkertons were killed.  The event inspired a song by William W. Delaney.  The lyrics include the lines, “God help them tonight in their hour of affliction, Praying for him whom they’ll ne’er see again, Hear the poor orphans tell their sad story, “Father was killed by a Pinkerton Man.”