Allan Pinkerton Allan Pinkerton (25 August 1819 – 1 July 1884) was a Scottish American detective and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

Early life, career and immigration Pinkerton was born in the Gorbals, Glasgow, Scotland, to William Pinkerton and his wife, Isobel McQueen, on August 25, 1820. In his youth Pinkerton worked Cooper, in 1842 he moved to the United States and unearthed there cooperage shop near Chicago. Once fraudsters paid in his shop counterfeit banknotes. And then it was showed a young Pinkerton detective talent - he has successfully tracked down counterfeiters and with the help of the local sheriff detained criminals. However, it appeared that detainees - only a part of a criminal group, and local businesses have offered to help with the capture Alan leaders counterfeiters. After a brilliant investigation, which culminated in the detention of members of the criminal group in 1846 was replaced by Alan Pinkerton career with Cooper for Sheriff. However, Pinkerton pretty soon grew disillusioned with his new profession, as local law enforcement agencies so badly performed their duties, that they could not deploy serious action to apprehend criminals. Four years later, Alan left his post and moved to Chicago, where he founded the famous detective agency. The motto of the agency was the phrase: "We never sleep" and the logo - a wide-eyed.

The Pinkerton National Detective Agency has introduced a number of innovations in the practice of the detective business. Thus, one of the achievements of the agency was the introduction of the system of identification of criminals from photographs and personal. Earlier in the United States to identify the criminals police regularly come to the prison and tried to remember as much as possible criminal entities. Pinkerton also began to collect portraits of criminals. Each portrait is consistent with a detailed description of criminal acts, terms of serving their imprisonment and other information. It should be noted that the entire criminal file was available not only to law enforcement agencies of Chicago, but also in many other U.S. cities. The widespread availability of filing allowed the guardians of order to cooperate in the field of search and capture of criminals moving from state to state. Pinkerton also belonged to develop new technologies for catching criminals, including the introduction of the gang. Pinkerton first proposed to classify offenders according to the nature of the offense for the raiders, thieves, swindlers and pickpockets.

Pinkerton (left) with Abraham Lincoln and Major General John A Pinkerton (left) with Abraham Lincoln and Major General John A. McClernand. Pinkerton on horseback on the Antietam Battlefield in 1862.

Pinkerton Agency enjoyed great popularity in the United States Pinkerton Agency enjoyed great popularity in the United States. Detectives Agency due to new methods of crime investigation revealed the most difficult and complicated cases that were beyond the power of law enforcement state. One of the biggest success was preventing an attempt on the President of the United States Lincoln in Baltimore in 1861 and the arrest of the organizers of the theft of 700,000 dollars in the railway company Adams Express.

Continuing to deal with bank robberies and train the Pinkerton Agency has become the first U.S. intelligence agency. It was engaged in espionage and counter-espionage, performing secret missions during the Civil War between the North and the South. In 1862, Pinkerton has resigned from his post as head of the secret service, but continued his detective work. Having seen her on the path of life tangled mass crimes and interesting events, great detective began to publish books on the detection and prevention of crime. The successful detective agency, and after the death of the Pinkerton of gangrene   in 1884, has not lost its popularity. The reins of the agency took over the detective's sons. Currently owned by the Pinkerton Detective Agency Swedish Agency "Securitas", which honors the tradition of the detective business, incorporated in the XIX century, the great private detective Pinkerton.

Pinkerton's Tomb, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago.