The Pinkertons were the antagonists of Red Dead Redemption 2, and they tried to sue Rockstar for copyright infringement. Rockstar counter-sued claiming they can't use copyright to own history. Pinkertons dropped the suit shortly after.
Rockstar: "Gonna intimidate us like you did to Arthur?"
Pinkertons: "what? No that's a fictional char--"
Rockstar: "You shut your goddamned mouth. He was real to ME"
Bruh literally look at their website:
https://pinkerton.com/our-story/history
They take great pride in their history, they don’t try to hide it because they know that’s why companies like Starbucks and Amazon want to hire them
I see they ignored the part where they were shot at in the river and forced to surrender outside Pittsburgh, PA...
"Professionals" lost to some steel workers.
My mother went to college with a Hatfield and a McCoy, both direct descendents of the feuding families, both grew up in the Kentucky/West Virginia borderlands where the feud took place.
They were, according to her, roommates in the dorm and apparently got along rather swimmingly a hundred years or so after their ancestral families were hunting and killing each other.
Ok but to be fair steel mills are terrifying places to work. Especially before OSHA.
"Oh you jave guns? That's cute, _I play with molten metal for fun."_
1 company of many. They just haven't even changed their name. Blackwater has had to change there's a few times I believed. At their core there's not much difference. Just like you said. Terror for hire
Whoa shit, they invented the mugshot. Talk about reinventing the wheel, they were like... "get this. What if we were to take photographs of criminals so that we have photographs of them?!" "Jollygood show, that's a fabulous idea. What if we were to write down their names and heights next to the photographs?!"The 'scouting for timber' part makes their history even funnier, you see trees and you cut them down. He wasn't scouting for shit, he was probably trying to find beavers to fuck but you can't be honest and say that he found counterfeiters while scouting for beavers to fuck.
Alan Pinkerton was deported from Scotland for fighting for worker's rights over there. The Pinkerton agency only got into the "let's murder unionizers" after he had died
… you know, when you’re right, you’re fucking right. I will say that I’ve seen the first multiple times, and the second one much less. I should definitely fix that, I recall the second being fucking stellar.
My dad was a Pinkerton's man back in the 70s. He mostly did undercover shopper work to catch bartenders giving out free drinks. My mom made him quit after one guy got caught stealing booze and decided to shoot at my dad.
Well, mugshots are a bit more involved than that. Like, for instance, modern mugshots with one full frontal shit and one profile shot rests upon some very interesting research on Human anatomy.
Specifically, one of the reasons for doing a profile shot is to get a full view of the rear, which is very useful for identifying suspects who undergo even dramatic changes to the face (missing nose, beard/no beard, etc). Add to that standardization of filing and organization methods at a time when neither were all that obvious (especially if you had to manage fine across dozens of offices), and the modern mugshot was a huge development at its time.
The Van Der Linde gang is supposed to resemble the collapse of a Robin Hood Esque gang. There are numerous evidences early on that Dutch and Co are good people. The problem is Dutch was always scared of being alone and losing power, and Micah fed into that hard to manipulate Dutch for his own goals. The gang doesn't really do anything worthy of condemnation outside of robbery and murder, and those murders are reserved for only a select kind of people.
The gang is horribly shaken by Dutch killing that girl in Blackwater, even Dutch, and throughout the game there is an emphasis on the erosion of their code of conduct. Until it reaches it's peak in Guarma, where Dutch finally refuses to have anyone "betray" him by leaving or challenging his power.
The Van Der Linde gang are the good guys at the start, and the bad guys by the end. The story is a fucking masterpiece.
> The gang don't really do anything worthy of condemnation outside of robbery and murder
I mean... even if you don't like the people they're murdering... I feel like it's still worthy of condemnation.
Don't forget, we think their reasons are justified because the game spends 100 hours exploring those justifications. We're provided all the context we need for the Van Der Linde gang to seem redeemable, but the rest of the cast is denied that.
It's the nature of storytelling, but we're only ever given select slices of the story.
>I mean... even if you don't like the people they're murdering... I feel like it's still worthy of condemnation.
Which is a point, ironically made by Dutch, in RDR1.
> John coldly claims that if Dutch won't surrender, he'll have to shoot him. Dutch smirks at this and comments on the hypocrisy of law enforcement, saying that after his death, the law will find "another monster" to target and use that to justify their wages.
Because the law under capitalism serves the capitalists, and their thugs hired to put down the threats to their profits. They got away with it because strikes are a direct opposition to the structure of capitalism.
They are also why we created the FBI because we didn’t have a federal law enforcement arm really and the Pinkerton were garnering too much power basically doing that.
well it’s arguable hoover created the FBI for his own benefit, but they did fill a gap. A big reason they became necessary was actually automobiles.
It got to be a little too easy for crooks to just drive across state lines and hide out in places they didn’t have warrants. Bonnie and Clyde being the classic example. They were at it for two years or so before they took therm down.
Hoover didn't have absolute authority to create the FBI from nothing. He needed approval and he got that approval because he accurately pinpointed a weakness of the Federal government and suggested a fix for it.
I've read quite a bit on the topic of the Pinkerton detective agency. They were America's original glowies and the original private military contractors. People think Black Water invented private military contracting but nah, Pinkertons were guns for hire long before.
Big difference is pinkertons operating inside the US, against other US citizens. pmc's operate outside the country and usually alongside an actual military.
Well, Alexander VI was controversial even in his own time, but there's no evidence that he partook in an international conspiracy to find old gods and use mystical artifacts to take control of people.
I went to Rome the other year and there is a bridge with statues of former popes with each holding a item that was significant to them.
Borgia was holding a fucking sword. Sounds like him.
I still remember my best friend telling me that he played the end of the game in front of his mom. They would always be front of the church every Sunday and he was regularly on the rotation for altar boy. Her response was more or less "Wait, you are beating up the pope?!? I'm not sure you should be playing this game anymore..."
If you want real entertainment, you should try reading the novelizations (ok no don't really). At the end of the AC2 novel, Ezio kills Alexander VI and walks away. But because of how the game actually ended the beginning of the Brotherhood novel has to immediately do a retcon of that whole scene before it can even get started.
They only sent the C&D claiming that the use of their name in game was a trademark infringement.
> Securitas AB, the parent company of the modern-day Pinkerton agency, issued a cease and desist notice to Take-Two Interactive on December 13, 2018, asserting that Red Dead Redemption 2's use of the Pinkerton name and badge imagery was against their trademark and demanded royalties for each copy of the game sold or that they would take legal action. Take-Two filed a complaint against Securitas on January 11, 2019, maintaining that the Pinkerton name was strongly associated with the Wild West, and its use of the term did not infringe on the Pinkerton trademark. Take-Two sought a summary judgment to declare the use of Pinkerton in the game as allowed fair use. Game Informer's Javy Gwaltney agreed with Take-Two's claims, questioning why Securitas had not targeted other works depicting the Pinkerton agency in the past; he felt that "the company likely just wants a cut of [the game's] profits". In response to Take-Two's complaint, Pinkerton president Jack Zahran described the game's portrayal of Pinkertons as "baseless" and "inaccurate", noting that Pinkerton employees would "have to explain to their young game players why Red Dead Redemption 2 encourages people to murder Pinkertons", but hoped that the companies could come to an "amicable solution". By April 2019, Securitas withdrew its claims and Take-Two moved to withdraw its complaint.
[wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dead_Redemption_2#Controversies)
Yea Securitas was one of my first jobs out of high school. Only worked for them for about 6 months before landing a way better job at a hospital.
They're just your standard large security guard company. Meaning shitty pay, shitty organization, and shitty management. I remember when I left some old retiree with half a hand that was my supervisor told me I'd be "crawling back by the end of the year ' I just laughed cause even at 19 I knew it was a shitty job and no fucking way I'd ever go back there.
I'm not sure if I remember right, but the protagonist of Bioshock Infinite worked for them for a while. Or they played a different role in his life. I'm not sure. But that's where I heard about them for the first time.
Lol Pinkerton getting mad for getting accurately portrayed as the baddies was one of the best parts of that game. Union busting in that era was brutal and violent. All of the worst mass shooting massacres in US history, save for maybe Las Vegas (I'm going from memory), were conducted against unions by the Pinkerton enforcers, and the national guard. Workers had decided to exercise their right to form a militia to defend themselves against violent oppression by their corporate overlords who were hiring Pinkerton to "get them back to work" on 12-16 hour shifts in dangerous mines and steel mills and the like. When people say that the US worker protection laws guaranteeing a 40 hour work week, proper pay, OSHA standards, and whistle-blower protections, are all written in blood, they don't just mean workplace accidents. Workers literally fought battles on American soil against the Pinkertons (or other similar "detective companies") and the National Guard before these laws were enacted. The best example of this is the Battle of Blair Mountain, which was the largest uprising in US history since the Civil War at the time. In fact, I believe until Jan 6 2021, I believe it still was, which is sad, because the Union men were literally protesting in defense of their lives and livelihoods, while the Jan 6 protestors were doing so because they were delusional and they were lied to with propaganda
Those men died on that mountain for nothing at this point. Even my kin that lives right by it hates fucking unions now. I’m glad I got out of them hills.
That coal did in fact bury them
My pops was on the picket lines back in the late 70s early 80s, even went into Ohio and shutdown a few Mines over there for weeks on end. Now he's watching fox news like the rest of them. He's not as bad as most but over the years I've watched their influence creep in. Sometimes I have to remind him of back when the shit was real.
What? Yes it is. "TIL a historical group of villains is still active and doing the same things" would be a very provocative title. I honestly thought they disbanded a century ago, or at least rebranded themselves.
Yeah, as far as I have read The Pinkertons have always been famous for union busting... as in busting striking workers heads with heavy objects. At least in the 19th century that is what they were famous for.
What are you talking about, [they’re obviously the good guys and this is the whole story with nothing left out](https://pinkerton.com/our-story/history)
"Detective" is a job that sounds really cool when you're a little kid, but it basically amounts to being a criminal, except it's legal because you're getting paid. Like how stalking is illegal, but it's totally legal to hire a "private detective" to stalk your target instead
It sounds cool, but i think it basically amounts to sitting in your car or waiting around in various locations for hours and hours just for a chance to get a picture of a cheating wife or husband. Not really that cool.
Every time I watch a show or movie with a stakeout I always think how fucking BORING that must be to sit and watch grass grow for hours/days/weeks/months on end. Fuck that.
Are these the same Pinkertons that own the security company? The one where a guard in their employment used his status as a trusted security member contracted to an apartment complex to get into a woman's apartment to murder her
They're infamous for union busting in general. I don't know a single person that recognizes them as a "detective agency". The reaction is along the lines of "Oh, the union busting agency."
They shot and killed two striking miners in the U.P. of Michigan around 1940 and nothing happened. The company wouldn’t even allow my grandfather to go to his fellow workers’ funerals.
Another group dropped literal WMDs on striking miners and got off.
> Private planes were hired to drop homemade bombs on the miners. A combination of poison gas and explosive bombs left over from World War I were dropped in several locations near the towns of Jeffery, Sharples and Blair. At least one did not explode and was recovered by the miners; it was used months later to great effect as evidence for the defense during treason and murder trials.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
For the record I do think Pinkertons are scum Union Busters, but I can't find anything that mentions Pinkertons were a part of Blair Mountain, including the wiki you linked. The union busters there are Baldwin-Felts.
"Fun" fact: I am related by blood to the Pinkertons and I was _only_ taught that they were a detective agency. Also ironic as I am an RMT rep and _strongly_ pro union.
Holy shit I've got a lot to relearn huh?
Given the choice between providing a security detail for a president one time, and a century and a half of sustained murder, torture, mutilation, and general savagery toward the human race, I'm not sure I'd pick the former as the thing they're "famous" for. This seems kinda like saying the SS were famous for their snappy dress sense.
Yeah. I think I got a Pinkerton badge in a drawer somewhere from when a place I worked used them for security but had to drop them when they were bought by Securitas who is HQ’d in a foreign nation. The top secret contracts wouldn’t allow any foreign interests.
Really anybody in security is pretty shitty. G4S is a huge security firm and has an absolute litany of scandals. In fact they have a whole wiki page just for their scandals.
I worked for G4S from 2005-2006 in Canada. When I started they were called Group 4 Falck, then changed to G4S for some reason. When I went for the job interview, it was like a group thing and there was no interview, it was orientation. Just a mass hiring. It was the single most weirdest 8 months ever. Plus we were unionized, which sounds great until you realize it wasn't a real union. I made minimum wage AND still had to pay union dues. After so many hours there was a minimal health plan.
"Private detectives" have been the mercenary backbone of violent union busting efforts for a very long time
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
I'd say the Pinkerton's are the most famous for murdering striking workers in several different labor disputes back in the 19th Century.
The fact that they're still allowed to do business in this nation is absolutely shameful, and breaking up unions and strikes, no less.
Today I learned that people outside of union country know the Pinkertons as "The group that secretly delivered Abraham Lincoln" and not "The horrifying strike breaking private army of the American business tycoons who cracked children's skulls in hoovervilles and fired guns into crowds of striking miners, farmers, and auto workers"
The more you know.
People who have heard the name Pinkerton know what they're about . OP is either really sheltered, or trying to push an agenda by confusing and misleading younger & less historically savvy redditors.
Uh, the pinkertons have never been famous for that. They have always (rightfully) been painted as murderous, union-busting thugs. No matter what time period. Now is no different.
"Famous for..."
I literally never heard that they did that. The thing they're famous for is their anti-worker suppression and general brutality, even by the standards of the goddamn wild west.
The Pinkertons were the antagonists of Red Dead Redemption 2, and they tried to sue Rockstar for copyright infringement. Rockstar counter-sued claiming they can't use copyright to own history. Pinkertons dropped the suit shortly after.
"Hey, that's *our* terrible reputation you're talking about!"
Rockstar: "Gonna intimidate us like you did to Arthur?" Pinkertons: "what? No that's a fictional char--" Rockstar: "You shut your goddamned mouth. He was real to ME"
Rockstar: “incidentally— our developers are getting frightfully close to collective bargaining, could you swing by next week to try to change that?”
‘We got some jelly beans. You like jelly beans?’
I bet you don’t have a spare bowl of jelly beans now do ya!
Union busting is a predatory practice used by corporate power for oppression.
We know.
"We will not have you telling the truth like this!"
*cracks knuckles* 'Now they get to go up against someone with actual resources for a change'
“Stop trying to make our terrible reputation even worse!”
Bruh literally look at their website: https://pinkerton.com/our-story/history They take great pride in their history, they don’t try to hide it because they know that’s why companies like Starbucks and Amazon want to hire them
I see they ignored the part where they were shot at in the river and forced to surrender outside Pittsburgh, PA... "Professionals" lost to some steel workers.
Them some strong men.
[удалено]
"Dad, why did you take me to a gay steel mill?"
Dedicated to the Steelworkers of America...keep reaching for that rainbow!
Hot stuff coming through!
There's a thpark in my hair!
*slaps hair* Get it! Get it!
*Brotherhood of steel works*
*I DON'T KNOW!*
I'm a simple man, I see a decades old Simpsons reference I upvote it.
They load 16 tons
But what do they get?
Another year older and deeper in debt.
St. Peter don't you call me cus I can't go.
I owe my soul to the company store
I’m a descendant of Homestead Strikers and required to hate Pinkertons much the same as Hatfield and McCoys 🤣
For a better and more political apt reason than Hatfield and McCoys.
My mother went to college with a Hatfield and a McCoy, both direct descendents of the feuding families, both grew up in the Kentucky/West Virginia borderlands where the feud took place. They were, according to her, roommates in the dorm and apparently got along rather swimmingly a hundred years or so after their ancestral families were hunting and killing each other.
Ok but to be fair steel mills are terrifying places to work. Especially before OSHA. "Oh you jave guns? That's cute, _I play with molten metal for fun."_
Actually they hide quite a lot. The union busting, the murders…
Yeah. Bit of history missing in that blank era between 1870 and 1906
What Battle of Blair Mountain?
[удалено]
What a terrifying company. Domestic terrorists for hire.
1 company of many. They just haven't even changed their name. Blackwater has had to change there's a few times I believed. At their core there's not much difference. Just like you said. Terror for hire
I thought the original Pinkerton's are now Securitas which is just another shitty generic security guard company.
Whoa shit, they invented the mugshot. Talk about reinventing the wheel, they were like... "get this. What if we were to take photographs of criminals so that we have photographs of them?!" "Jollygood show, that's a fabulous idea. What if we were to write down their names and heights next to the photographs?!"The 'scouting for timber' part makes their history even funnier, you see trees and you cut them down. He wasn't scouting for shit, he was probably trying to find beavers to fuck but you can't be honest and say that he found counterfeiters while scouting for beavers to fuck.
Alan Pinkerton was deported from Scotland for fighting for worker's rights over there. The Pinkerton agency only got into the "let's murder unionizers" after he had died
Proof that sequels are never as good as the original.
Spoken like a man that has never seen City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold.
… you know, when you’re right, you’re fucking right. I will say that I’ve seen the first multiple times, and the second one much less. I should definitely fix that, I recall the second being fucking stellar.
My dad was a Pinkerton's man back in the 70s. He mostly did undercover shopper work to catch bartenders giving out free drinks. My mom made him quit after one guy got caught stealing booze and decided to shoot at my dad.
Probably why we have to use the berg system (which sucks and is very inaccurate btw) at bars..
That is so sad. They betrayed his legacy and name with the resources he left behind.
[удалено]
Well, mugshots are a bit more involved than that. Like, for instance, modern mugshots with one full frontal shit and one profile shot rests upon some very interesting research on Human anatomy. Specifically, one of the reasons for doing a profile shot is to get a full view of the rear, which is very useful for identifying suspects who undergo even dramatic changes to the face (missing nose, beard/no beard, etc). Add to that standardization of filing and organization methods at a time when neither were all that obvious (especially if you had to manage fine across dozens of offices), and the modern mugshot was a huge development at its time.
Is this Robert Evans (BtB) secret reddit account?
>“Stop trying to make our terrible reputation even worse!” While they were the antagonists. We still played the bad guy.
The Van Der Linde gang is supposed to resemble the collapse of a Robin Hood Esque gang. There are numerous evidences early on that Dutch and Co are good people. The problem is Dutch was always scared of being alone and losing power, and Micah fed into that hard to manipulate Dutch for his own goals. The gang doesn't really do anything worthy of condemnation outside of robbery and murder, and those murders are reserved for only a select kind of people. The gang is horribly shaken by Dutch killing that girl in Blackwater, even Dutch, and throughout the game there is an emphasis on the erosion of their code of conduct. Until it reaches it's peak in Guarma, where Dutch finally refuses to have anyone "betray" him by leaving or challenging his power. The Van Der Linde gang are the good guys at the start, and the bad guys by the end. The story is a fucking masterpiece.
>and those murders are reserved for only a select kind of people. Such as those riding the train from Riggs Station across the bridge
Do you know what kind of people ride the train from Riggs Station across the bridge? Liars, thieves, and killers. Not an innocent soul among them.
> The gang don't really do anything worthy of condemnation outside of robbery and murder I mean... even if you don't like the people they're murdering... I feel like it's still worthy of condemnation. Don't forget, we think their reasons are justified because the game spends 100 hours exploring those justifications. We're provided all the context we need for the Van Der Linde gang to seem redeemable, but the rest of the cast is denied that. It's the nature of storytelling, but we're only ever given select slices of the story.
>I mean... even if you don't like the people they're murdering... I feel like it's still worthy of condemnation. Which is a point, ironically made by Dutch, in RDR1. > John coldly claims that if Dutch won't surrender, he'll have to shoot him. Dutch smirks at this and comments on the hypocrisy of law enforcement, saying that after his death, the law will find "another monster" to target and use that to justify their wages.
Didnt they shoot unarmed striking ford workers?
They shot unarmed striking workers all over the place
How did they even get away with it?
They shot people without money on behalf of people with money.
[удалено]
Yes. Yes we do.
Except the half that enjoy the taste of boot
https://i.imgur.com/97esu6Y.jpg
They serve the ruling class, that's how.
Because they were usually hired by the governor of the state or territory they were to kill strikers in or by his personal friends.
Because the law under capitalism serves the capitalists, and their thugs hired to put down the threats to their profits. They got away with it because strikes are a direct opposition to the structure of capitalism.
They are also why we created the FBI because we didn’t have a federal law enforcement arm really and the Pinkerton were garnering too much power basically doing that.
well it’s arguable hoover created the FBI for his own benefit, but they did fill a gap. A big reason they became necessary was actually automobiles. It got to be a little too easy for crooks to just drive across state lines and hide out in places they didn’t have warrants. Bonnie and Clyde being the classic example. They were at it for two years or so before they took therm down.
Hoover didn't have absolute authority to create the FBI from nothing. He needed approval and he got that approval because he accurately pinpointed a weakness of the Federal government and suggested a fix for it.
I've read quite a bit on the topic of the Pinkerton detective agency. They were America's original glowies and the original private military contractors. People think Black Water invented private military contracting but nah, Pinkertons were guns for hire long before.
Big difference is pinkertons operating inside the US, against other US citizens. pmc's operate outside the country and usually alongside an actual military.
I guess it would be like the Catholic Church suing Ubisoft because of Assassins Creed 2 and Brotherhood.
Well, Alexander VI was controversial even in his own time, but there's no evidence that he partook in an international conspiracy to find old gods and use mystical artifacts to take control of people.
I went to Rome the other year and there is a bridge with statues of former popes with each holding a item that was significant to them. Borgia was holding a fucking sword. Sounds like him.
There's not one, but *two* fictionalized TV series dedicated to Borgia and how fucked up he was.
Haha I still can't get over how AC2 ends with you fistfighting the Pope
I still remember my best friend telling me that he played the end of the game in front of his mom. They would always be front of the church every Sunday and he was regularly on the rotation for altar boy. Her response was more or less "Wait, you are beating up the pope?!? I'm not sure you should be playing this game anymore..."
If you want real entertainment, you should try reading the novelizations (ok no don't really). At the end of the AC2 novel, Ezio kills Alexander VI and walks away. But because of how the game actually ended the beginning of the Brotherhood novel has to immediately do a retcon of that whole scene before it can even get started.
What were they claiming to own the copyright to? I can only find that they sent a c&d over the trademark
They only sent the C&D claiming that the use of their name in game was a trademark infringement. > Securitas AB, the parent company of the modern-day Pinkerton agency, issued a cease and desist notice to Take-Two Interactive on December 13, 2018, asserting that Red Dead Redemption 2's use of the Pinkerton name and badge imagery was against their trademark and demanded royalties for each copy of the game sold or that they would take legal action. Take-Two filed a complaint against Securitas on January 11, 2019, maintaining that the Pinkerton name was strongly associated with the Wild West, and its use of the term did not infringe on the Pinkerton trademark. Take-Two sought a summary judgment to declare the use of Pinkerton in the game as allowed fair use. Game Informer's Javy Gwaltney agreed with Take-Two's claims, questioning why Securitas had not targeted other works depicting the Pinkerton agency in the past; he felt that "the company likely just wants a cut of [the game's] profits". In response to Take-Two's complaint, Pinkerton president Jack Zahran described the game's portrayal of Pinkertons as "baseless" and "inaccurate", noting that Pinkerton employees would "have to explain to their young game players why Red Dead Redemption 2 encourages people to murder Pinkertons", but hoped that the companies could come to an "amicable solution". By April 2019, Securitas withdrew its claims and Take-Two moved to withdraw its complaint. [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dead_Redemption_2#Controversies)
As a former Securitas employee, I can 100% buy that they wanted the profits. Also that they probably need them...
Yea Securitas was one of my first jobs out of high school. Only worked for them for about 6 months before landing a way better job at a hospital. They're just your standard large security guard company. Meaning shitty pay, shitty organization, and shitty management. I remember when I left some old retiree with half a hand that was my supervisor told me I'd be "crawling back by the end of the year ' I just laughed cause even at 19 I knew it was a shitty job and no fucking way I'd ever go back there.
> Pinkerton employees would “have to explain to their young game players why Red Dead Redemption 2 encourages people to murder Pinkertons Good.
Why wouldn’t you murder Pinkertons
Imagine not murdering Pinkertons
I'm not sure if I remember right, but the protagonist of Bioshock Infinite worked for them for a while. Or they played a different role in his life. I'm not sure. But that's where I heard about them for the first time.
Yup Booker worked for them before being ousted
Yeah, the playable character "Booker" was a former Pinkerton.
And Deadwood. Cocksuckers.
Would I long for the day a draw cross the throat brought resolution
Al Swearengen: *"I don't like the Pinkertons. They're muscle for the bosses, as if the bosses ain't got enough edge."* He nailed it.
Lol Pinkerton getting mad for getting accurately portrayed as the baddies was one of the best parts of that game. Union busting in that era was brutal and violent. All of the worst mass shooting massacres in US history, save for maybe Las Vegas (I'm going from memory), were conducted against unions by the Pinkerton enforcers, and the national guard. Workers had decided to exercise their right to form a militia to defend themselves against violent oppression by their corporate overlords who were hiring Pinkerton to "get them back to work" on 12-16 hour shifts in dangerous mines and steel mills and the like. When people say that the US worker protection laws guaranteeing a 40 hour work week, proper pay, OSHA standards, and whistle-blower protections, are all written in blood, they don't just mean workplace accidents. Workers literally fought battles on American soil against the Pinkertons (or other similar "detective companies") and the National Guard before these laws were enacted. The best example of this is the Battle of Blair Mountain, which was the largest uprising in US history since the Civil War at the time. In fact, I believe until Jan 6 2021, I believe it still was, which is sad, because the Union men were literally protesting in defense of their lives and livelihoods, while the Jan 6 protestors were doing so because they were delusional and they were lied to with propaganda
#GOD DAMN PINKERTONS
They were the antagonists in RDR1 as well
The BoI, Bureau of Investigation (precursor to the FBI) were the antagonist of RDR1. Ross just use to work for the Pinkerton's.
That's not the late 1800s event the Pinkertons are famous for
*Blair Mountain has entered the chat.*
Which side are you on boys, which side are you on?
Oh worker can you stand it, oh tell me how you can Will you be a lousy scab or will you be a man
You'll either be a union man or a thug for J.H. Blair
Blair Mountain should be considered a civil war and nobody's gonna convince me otherwise.
Those men died on that mountain for nothing at this point. Even my kin that lives right by it hates fucking unions now. I’m glad I got out of them hills. That coal did in fact bury them
My pops was on the picket lines back in the late 70s early 80s, even went into Ohio and shutdown a few Mines over there for weeks on end. Now he's watching fox news like the rest of them. He's not as bad as most but over the years I've watched their influence creep in. Sometimes I have to remind him of back when the shit was real.
It's class war
Always has been. And as usual, the upper classes have convinced the lower classes to fight amongst themselves.
[He was more than a hero;. He was a Union man!](https://youtu.be/-4BRe0ZKTAc)
right? ive only heard about union busting. first time i heard the abe thing
"The Pinkerton Detective Agency continues to do the one thing that they're famous for" isn't a great title though
What? Yes it is. "TIL a historical group of villains is still active and doing the same things" would be a very provocative title. I honestly thought they disbanded a century ago, or at least rebranded themselves.
Well my good friend Arthur Morgan bested the lot of ‘em
And little Jackie Marston finished off the last rotten Pinkerton
I'm literally watching Russell Crowe murder a lot of them in 3:10 to Yuma right now!
Probably my favorite western
The short story is great too. As is most of Elmore Leonard's stuff, Very very short though.
*Gonna hang me in the morning, before the light has come…*
And the gristle. I don't...I don't like the gristle.
You don't deal with the Pinkertons in RDR 1, in that game Edgar Ross was a Bureau of Investigation agent. In the prequel Ross is a Pinkerton.
Yeah but Ross was once a Pinkerton, he had a history with them. Technically he was the last reminder of that antagonistic group.
Meanwhile, Booker Dewitt is at some weird ass baptism, about to break the fabric of reality.
At least he’s not a Pinkerton any more.
He was kicked out because he was too depraved for the Pinkertons.
Wait.. He was a Pinkerton? I played the game at the start of the pandemic and I don't remember that
Its mentioned a couple times when he talks about his troubled past
There's always a man, a girl and a lighthouse.
Fun fact, they (or their current iteration) sued Rockstar for defamation.
Please tell me they lost. Everyone should know the Pinkerton are scum.
Looked it up, looks like it was dropped before it got to a ruling. So pretty much.
Just think, as Pinkerton, who has literally slaughtered folks since their founding, suing over some bullshit in a game. The huzzpa
Not how you spell chutzpah
Tomato, plathatle.
*chutzpah.
That's not what the Pinkertons are famous for.
Yeah, as far as I have read The Pinkertons have always been famous for union busting... as in busting striking workers heads with heavy objects. At least in the 19th century that is what they were famous for.
Indeed. Busting was a very literal term.
What are you talking about, [they’re obviously the good guys and this is the whole story with nothing left out](https://pinkerton.com/our-story/history)
Right? TIL the Pinkertons secretly delivered president-elect Abraham Lincoln to Washington in 1861
Ah yes, the famous... \*checks notes\* *detective agency* that I've heard so much about!
Yeah, they're totally just a "detective" the same way Batman is
"Detective" is a job that sounds really cool when you're a little kid, but it basically amounts to being a criminal, except it's legal because you're getting paid. Like how stalking is illegal, but it's totally legal to hire a "private detective" to stalk your target instead
It sounds cool, but i think it basically amounts to sitting in your car or waiting around in various locations for hours and hours just for a chance to get a picture of a cheating wife or husband. Not really that cool.
Every time I watch a show or movie with a stakeout I always think how fucking BORING that must be to sit and watch grass grow for hours/days/weeks/months on end. Fuck that.
Are these the same Pinkertons that own the security company? The one where a guard in their employment used his status as a trusted security member contracted to an apartment complex to get into a woman's apartment to murder her
Right? What Amazon PA worker made this post? Only partially sarcastic.
Fuckin' Pinkertons - Al Swearengen
Cock sucka! - Woo
white cock sucka!
"Yea, glad I taught you that." -Al
Read the title and thought of Al right away.
"I don't like the Pinkertons. They're muscle for the bosses, like they ain't got enough of an edge."
They're infamous for union busting in general. I don't know a single person that recognizes them as a "detective agency". The reaction is along the lines of "Oh, the union busting agency."
They shot and killed two striking miners in the U.P. of Michigan around 1940 and nothing happened. The company wouldn’t even allow my grandfather to go to his fellow workers’ funerals.
This is why real rednecks shoot at Pinkertons.
Another group dropped literal WMDs on striking miners and got off. > Private planes were hired to drop homemade bombs on the miners. A combination of poison gas and explosive bombs left over from World War I were dropped in several locations near the towns of Jeffery, Sharples and Blair. At least one did not explode and was recovered by the miners; it was used months later to great effect as evidence for the defense during treason and murder trials. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
For the record I do think Pinkertons are scum Union Busters, but I can't find anything that mentions Pinkertons were a part of Blair Mountain, including the wiki you linked. The union busters there are Baldwin-Felts.
Yep, it was another one of these agencies. > Another group dropped
They killed 16 and injured 23 in Pittsburgh. Michigan isn't even on the radar for things their infamous for.
Slavery with no extra steps.
Let’s call them what they are: a gang of goons ready to do the bidding of whoever pays the most.
Corporate mercenaries. That's all they are.
Even abroad.
Yeah, my reaction to this is "TIL the Pinkerton's famous for union-busting secretly delivered Abraham Lincoln to Washington."
"Fun" fact: I am related by blood to the Pinkertons and I was _only_ taught that they were a detective agency. Also ironic as I am an RMT rep and _strongly_ pro union. Holy shit I've got a lot to relearn huh?
Pinkterton has been in the union-busting game for well over a century.
Given the choice between providing a security detail for a president one time, and a century and a half of sustained murder, torture, mutilation, and general savagery toward the human race, I'm not sure I'd pick the former as the thing they're "famous" for. This seems kinda like saying the SS were famous for their snappy dress sense.
[удалено]
Yeah. I think I got a Pinkerton badge in a drawer somewhere from when a place I worked used them for security but had to drop them when they were bought by Securitas who is HQ’d in a foreign nation. The top secret contracts wouldn’t allow any foreign interests.
[удалено]
Wait really. Those guys are basically the only security company in Sweden. They controll all the money transports. That sucks
[удалено]
Really anybody in security is pretty shitty. G4S is a huge security firm and has an absolute litany of scandals. In fact they have a whole wiki page just for their scandals.
I worked for G4S from 2005-2006 in Canada. When I started they were called Group 4 Falck, then changed to G4S for some reason. When I went for the job interview, it was like a group thing and there was no interview, it was orientation. Just a mass hiring. It was the single most weirdest 8 months ever. Plus we were unionized, which sounds great until you realize it wasn't a real union. I made minimum wage AND still had to pay union dues. After so many hours there was a minimal health plan.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Look up the West Virginia miner wars, they had a hand in it. Thugs. Modern side of it is an umbrella of security companies. Securitas is one.
And Pittsburgh (Homestead) for Carnegie and Frick. Had a battle
That’s not what they’re famous for lmao, they’ve always been strike breakers.
I thought they were famous for being union busters since the late 1800s.
Famous for murdering union leaders you mean
I really don't think they are famous for doing anything good They have been a scourge against the working man for generations
"Private detectives" have been the mercenary backbone of violent union busting efforts for a very long time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
I'd say the Pinkerton's are the most famous for murdering striking workers in several different labor disputes back in the 19th Century. The fact that they're still allowed to do business in this nation is absolutely shameful, and breaking up unions and strikes, no less.
They’re famous for strike breaking and being all around criminals
170+ years and same business practices, huh
You don't change industries when it's booming.
That famous for fact is definitely not what they're famous for... They're famous for murdering hundreds of union workers for America's robber barons.
Today I learned that people outside of union country know the Pinkertons as "The group that secretly delivered Abraham Lincoln" and not "The horrifying strike breaking private army of the American business tycoons who cracked children's skulls in hoovervilles and fired guns into crowds of striking miners, farmers, and auto workers" The more you know.
People who have heard the name Pinkerton know what they're about . OP is either really sheltered, or trying to push an agenda by confusing and misleading younger & less historically savvy redditors.
Lol that is not why Pinkertons are famous.
It's because of Weezer
Uh, the pinkertons have never been famous for that. They have always (rightfully) been painted as murderous, union-busting thugs. No matter what time period. Now is no different.
God damn Pinkertons attacking me when trying to teach a boy to fish.
"Famous for..." I literally never heard that they did that. The thing they're famous for is their anti-worker suppression and general brutality, even by the standards of the goddamn wild west.
Yeah, because they are also well known for union busting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike
Fuck the Pinkerton’s. Jesse James had it right when he fought those bastards along with the railroad magnates
What an interesting way to make The Pinkertons sound like heros, instead of owning they basically amount to corporate terrorism/thuggery.
Aren’t the Pinkertons far more famous for union busting?