Editing Allan Pinkerton (section)

==Legacy==
After his death, the agency continued to operate and soon became a major force against the [[labor movement]] developing in the US and [[Canada]]. This effort changed the image of the Pinkertons for years. They were involved in numerous activities against labor during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including:
* The [[Homestead Strike]] (1892), the direct impetus for the federal [[Anti-Pinkerton Act]] of 1893, prohibiting the federal government from hiring its detectives
* The [[Pullman Strike]] (1894)
* The [[Wild Bunch]] Gang (1896)
* The [[Ludlow Massacre]] (1914)
* The [[La Follette Committee]] (1933–1937)

Despite his agency's later reputation for anti-labor activities, Pinkerton himself was heavily involved in pro-labor politics as a young man.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thrillingdetective.com/eyes/pinkerton.html |title=Allan J. Pinkerton |publisher=Thrillingdetective.com |access-date=December 28, 2011}}</ref> Though Pinkerton considered himself pro-labor, he opposed strikes and distrusted labor unions.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pinkerton |first=Allan |title=Strikers, Communists, Tramps and Detectives |publisher=G. W. Carleton & Company |year=1878 |pages=14–7}}</ref>

Allan Pinkerton was so famous that for decades after his death, his surname was a [[slang]] term for a [[private investigator|private eye]], whether they were agents of the Pinkerton Agency or not. The "Mr. Pinkerton" novels, by American mystery writer  [[Zenith Jones Brown]] (under the pseudonym David Frome), were about Welsh-born amateur detective Evan Pinkerton and may have been inspired by the slang term.