Pinkerton, who’d immigrated to America from Scotland in 1842, was a cooper (maker of wooden casks and barrels) and abolitionist known for his populist views.
#PINKERTONS DETECTIVE AGENCY FULL#
Warne replaced her Northern accent with a Southern one befriended Maroney’s wife and, alongside Pinkerton colleague John White, elicited a full confession from the embezzler. In 1859, for instance, she helped track down Nathan Maroney, who was suspected of embezzling from the Adams Express Company in Montgomery, Alabama. But she quickly established herself as a leading Pinkerton investigator. How Warne landed on detective work as an alternative to acting is unclear. She longed to escape her upbringing and become an actress, but both of her parents discouraged this dream. Her father was a minister, and as a young woman, she took on the role of running the household, according to McNary.
Little is known about Warne’s early life except that she was born into a large, impoverished family in the town of Erin, New York, in 1833. Meltzer, for his part, says, “To this moment, we don’t know if Allan Pinkerton is just an amazing advocate for women’s rights, or he’s just a shrewd businessman who realizes she’s going to make him some money. Still, McNary adds, “She pointed out to him the advantages that her gender carried with it and the ability to gain confidences and positions of access that would be unavailable to him.” “It really not a customarily appropriate position for a lady.” “Allan was flummoxed at first,” says Brian McNary, current vice president of Pinkerton, which opened in 1850 and is now headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. infiltrating that world of women who are hearing and seeing people are looking right past her,” says Meltzer. In addition to making history as the first woman detective in the United States, Warne likely saved Abraham Lincoln’s life by helping to uncover-and thwart-a plot to assassinate him ahead of his March 1861 inauguration. Warne’s argument worked, and later that night, Pinkerton decided to take a chance on his unconventional applicant. Kate Warne, who'd posed as the disguised president-elect's sister, left the group after successfully delivering Lincoln to Baltimore. “What I love in that moment is she basically comes right at him and says, ‘I can see things and hear things that you’re not going to see and hear,’” explains Brad Meltzer, co-author of the 2020 bestseller The Lincoln Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill America’s 16th President-and Why It Failed.ĭepiction of Abraham Lincoln, detective Allan Pinkerton and bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon arriving in Washington, D.C. “Women have an eye for detail and are excellent observers,” she reportedly said to Pinkerton.
She could infiltrate places easily, as no one would expect a woman to be an undercover detective, and befriend the wives and girlfriends of suspected criminals. No American detective agency had hired a woman investigator before. But Kate Warne, a 23-year-old widow and recent transplant from New York, had a different role in mind: She wanted to be his newest detective. He assumed she’d misunderstood a job posting by his firm, the Chicago-based Pinkerton National Detective Agency.Īs Pinkerton told the visitor, he wasn’t looking for a secretary. On a hot summer day in 1856, detective Allan Pinkerton looked up from his desk and greeted the young woman standing in front of him.
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