In 1833 a French soldier called Eugène François Vidocq, a French
soldier, criminal and privateer, founded the first known private
detective agency, "Le Bureau des Renseignements Universels pour le
commerce et l'Industrie" (Office of Intelligence) and hired ex-convicts.
Official
law enforcement tried to shut it down many times. In 1842 police
arrested him in suspicion of unlawful imprisonment and taking money on
false pretences after he had solved an embezzling case. Vidocq later
suspected that it had been a set-up. He was sentenced for five years
with a 3,000-franc fine but the Court of Appeals released him. Vidocq is
credited with having introduced record-keeping, criminology and
ballistics to criminal investigation. He made the first plaster casts of
shoe impressions. He created indelible ink and unalterable bond paper
with his printing company. His form of anthropometrics is still
partially used by French police. He is also credited for philanthropic
pursuits - he claimed he never informed on anyone who had stolen for
real need.
After Vidocq, the industry was born. Much of what
private investigators did in the early days was to act as the police in
matters that their clients felt the police were not equipped for or
willing to do. A larger role for this new private investigative industry
to was to assist companies in labor disputes. Some early private
investigators provided armed guards to act as a private militia.
In
the U.S., the Pinkerton National Detective Agency was a private
detective agency established in 1850 by Allan Pinkerton. Pinkerton had
become famous when he foiled a plot to assassinate then President-Elect
Abraham Lincoln. Pinkerton's agents performed services which ranged from
undercover investigations and detection of crimes to plant protection
and armed security. It is sometimes claimed, probably with exaggeration,
that at the height of its existence the Pinkerton National Detective
Agency employed more agents than the United States Army.
During
the labor unrest of the late 19th century, companies sometimes hired
operatives and armed guards from the Pinkertons and similar agencies to
keep strikers and suspected unionists out of their factories. The most
famous example of this was the Homestead Strike of 1892, when
industrialist Henry Clay Frick hired a large contingent of Pinkerton men
to regain possession of Andrew Carnegie's steel mill during a lock-out
at Homestead, Pennsylvania. Gunfire erupted between the strikers and the
Pinkertons, resulting in multiple casualties and deaths on both sides.
Several days later a radical anarchist, Alexander Berkman, attempted to
assassinate Frick. In the aftermath of the Homestead Riot, several
states passed so-called "anti-Pinkerton" laws restricting the
importation of private security guards during labor strikes. The federal
Anti-Pinkerton Act of 1893 continues to prohibit an "individual
employed by the Pinkerton Detective Agency, or similar organization"
from being employed by "the Government of the United States or the
government of the District of Columbia."
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