Most lovers of things Twain are aware of his love of Joan of Arc, her, her legend, the book he wrote about her. His love of women in general. He rarely missed an opportunity to edify women in society. Twain loved to tear down the mighty and encourage the less powerful; to balance the scales of social justice. He loved underdogs. Travel. Adventure, as long as he didn't have to sweat. Obviously, he loved to write. He loved making fun... of people, himself... but he is not famous for his most absurd satires about ... detectives. And there is a reason. It was not his best work.
Still, among this collection, which I believe came from the files of America's most beloved author, were a number of photographic images of the Pinkerton men. Allan Pinkerton founded the predecessor of the Secret Service when Abraham Lincoln was elected and spied for him during the Civil War, and eventually started an independent detective agency, which became famous the world over.
Originally named Samuel Clemens, Twain may have learned of them through his brother Orion Clemens, a Lincoln appointee who served as Secretary of the Nevada Territory. A Southerner at heart, Sam stayed aloof of the war, after serving shortly as an officer in the Confederacy when U. S. Grant invaded his station. He immediately sought safer climes when the shooting started.
As a Missourian, he would have followed the adventures of the Pinkertons during their most deadly and frustrating assignment; the pursuit of the Southern outlaw Jesse James and his gang. We have reason today to believe that Mark Twain not only met Jesse James but may have been entrusted to tell his life story.
So it would not have been strange to find photos of these two groups among this huge collection, even though Mark Twain was consistently sarcastic if not downright cynical about the Pinkertons and their kind. Several lesser known Twain novels made a public mockery of all detectivedom; The Stolen White Elephant; Simon Wheeler: Detective. He even made Tom Sawyer into a detective! He seemed to love heckling the legendary lawmen, even when they were probably tracking him during his bankrupt years- for his exasperated debtors. HOW he obtained such personal images.... of Pinkerton's sons as youths, even Pinkerton's daughter... is a mystery.
My guess is that if Mark Twain, one of the most famous writers in the world, contacted the Pinkertons, expressing his intention to write a detective novel, or perhaps a biography of the agency's founder, they would have seen the inquiry as a huge public relations opportunity.
Photographs of the Pinkertons were not available to the public, for obvious reasons. Photographs of their families even less. Only someone of impeccable reputation would have been made privy to such things... only someone like Mark Twain. Twain's closest friend and official handler, Albert Bigelow Paine, later specialized in biographies of the most important contemporary Americans... and even did a bio of the famous Texas Ranger Bill McDonald, and might easily have negotiated with the second or third generation of Pinkertons when the glory days were over, to do a biography of the world's most famous detective.
However the images found their way to an Ebay auction, along with hundreds of other rare and important Victorian tintypes, we will never know. But the chance to look into a Pinkerton family photo album has never been seen before. Anywhere.
Two tintypes which feature the legendary detective, Allan Pinkerton. The one in the center is a rare image of Pinkerton, after his stroke, I believe because of the frailty in his normally menacing eyes and the unpretentious grimace. The other, what is sure to be a controversial pose with a young Charlie Siringo, maybe before they were even supposed to have met! I am proposing that Siringo sought out The Pinkerton agency, perhaps as an informant, even before he released his first book. In the book he claimed to have more than casual knowledge about Billy the Kid and his gang. He may have posed with the famous sleuth as a budding writer, never imagining that someday he would be working for him as a detective, in fact one of the agency's most trusted.
One of the few large cabinet cards in the collection... in the middle and the face on left enlarged for comparison. William was the bad ass, Robert more the office type.
This seems to be a gathering of ex-Pinkertons. Charlie Siringo wrote a "tell all" after retiring, and then his detective books were systematically blocked by Pinkerton lawyers, who in one case had an entire publication burned, because of non-disclosure clauses in his contract. Siringo became a bit of a Pinkerton critic and skeptic himself. He was finally allowed to release his memoirs, but was forbidden to use real names or reveal real faces of his cohorts.
The girl in this center image looked very much like Allan Pinkerton's daughter Joan, who married well, and was protected from all the dangers the Pinkertons thrived on. Yes, she married into the Chalmers of Allis-Chalmers.
The personal nature of several of these tintypes suggests more of a familial relationship between the Pinkertons and the collector of these images. The range from the Civil War to the Turn of the Century, which suggests a longstanding, if not longsuffering connection is a rare glimpse into the first 40 years of the world's most famous detective agency, no matter who was at odds with them!
Still, among this collection, which I believe came from the files of America's most beloved author, were a number of photographic images of the Pinkerton men. Allan Pinkerton founded the predecessor of the Secret Service when Abraham Lincoln was elected and spied for him during the Civil War, and eventually started an independent detective agency, which became famous the world over.
Originally named Samuel Clemens, Twain may have learned of them through his brother Orion Clemens, a Lincoln appointee who served as Secretary of the Nevada Territory. A Southerner at heart, Sam stayed aloof of the war, after serving shortly as an officer in the Confederacy when U. S. Grant invaded his station. He immediately sought safer climes when the shooting started.
As a Missourian, he would have followed the adventures of the Pinkertons during their most deadly and frustrating assignment; the pursuit of the Southern outlaw Jesse James and his gang. We have reason today to believe that Mark Twain not only met Jesse James but may have been entrusted to tell his life story.
So it would not have been strange to find photos of these two groups among this huge collection, even though Mark Twain was consistently sarcastic if not downright cynical about the Pinkertons and their kind. Several lesser known Twain novels made a public mockery of all detectivedom; The Stolen White Elephant; Simon Wheeler: Detective. He even made Tom Sawyer into a detective! He seemed to love heckling the legendary lawmen, even when they were probably tracking him during his bankrupt years- for his exasperated debtors. HOW he obtained such personal images.... of Pinkerton's sons as youths, even Pinkerton's daughter... is a mystery.
My guess is that if Mark Twain, one of the most famous writers in the world, contacted the Pinkertons, expressing his intention to write a detective novel, or perhaps a biography of the agency's founder, they would have seen the inquiry as a huge public relations opportunity.
Photographs of the Pinkertons were not available to the public, for obvious reasons. Photographs of their families even less. Only someone of impeccable reputation would have been made privy to such things... only someone like Mark Twain. Twain's closest friend and official handler, Albert Bigelow Paine, later specialized in biographies of the most important contemporary Americans... and even did a bio of the famous Texas Ranger Bill McDonald, and might easily have negotiated with the second or third generation of Pinkertons when the glory days were over, to do a biography of the world's most famous detective.
However the images found their way to an Ebay auction, along with hundreds of other rare and important Victorian tintypes, we will never know. But the chance to look into a Pinkerton family photo album has never been seen before. Anywhere.
The personal nature of several of these tintypes suggests more of a familial relationship between the Pinkertons and the collector of these images. The range from the Civil War to the Turn of the Century, which suggests a longstanding, if not longsuffering connection is a rare glimpse into the first 40 years of the world's most famous detective agency, no matter who was at odds with them!
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