The Pinkerton National Detective Agency was the first detective firm and a major force in American politics from the 1850s through the 1930s. Students in the First-Year Seminar “The Political Economy of the Pinkertons” followed the agency from Illinois railroads and Civil War battlefields to the bloody fights over the American West, as the Pinkertons chased train robbers, broke strikes, and created a trail of enemies along the way. In the process, students gained a glimpse
into a changing America.

Jennifer Luff, associate teaching professor in the Department of Political Science, wanted her students to use the Pinkertons as a lens to consider transformations in the nature and structure of political authority and in technologies of surveillance and policing. She also wanted them to learn to analyze primary sources including detective reports, memoirs, and Congressional investigations, which is what they were doing during this visit to the university’s Historic Collection at George Peabody Library.

They also explored historical materials at Baltimore’s B&O Railroad Museum, and planned to investigate representations of the Pinkertons in popular culture, including the video game Red Dead Redemption 2.