The Pinkerton Detective Agency

The Pinkertons became the most famous detective company in the U. S. But were they noble or notorious? We get to the bottom of it all in today's episode. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:04Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:14Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and there's Jerry and this is Stuff You Should Know and we're keeping an eye on you, sucker.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Did I throw you off when I pre-recording?

• 1:27Josh Clark?

  No, I'm always expecting anything from you.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  We do our usual countdown, everyone, so we can sync sound. And you do that, here's a little how the sausage is made. You do that by counting down and then each of us clapping. So you have a spike in the audio wave file that the engineers and editors can align. So we match up.

• 1:48Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  And I clapped, but this time I also said, "Schlamile." Hoping you would say.

• 1:55Josh Clark?

  Oh, you set me up, huh? I'm sorry.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  That's okay.

• 1:57Josh Clark?

  Well, here, let me say it now. Schlamazle.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 2:02Josh Clark?

  Okay, are you ready to get on with our sausage party?

• 2:04Speaker 02

  Gross. Yeah, sure.

• 2:06Josh Clark?

  Okay, that was nice of you to kind of give that behind the scenes tour to everybody, Chuck.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  You know.

• 2:13Josh Clark?

  That's why everyone likes you more.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Trade secrets. That's not true. I've been on Reddit.

• 2:21Josh Clark?

  Whatever. Everybody likes you, including me, especially me. At any rate, so we're talking today about the Pinkerton Detective Agency. And this one strikes me as odd that we have waited this long, 17 years, to finally talk about them.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:37Josh Clark?

  And because they're just so legendary, you know, like, everybody knows what the Pinkertons are. And if you don't, I'm not taking that back, because everyone else knows what the Pinkertons are.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, technically was the name of it, but they were generally called the Pinkertons, led by Alan Pinkerton. And they're, you know, what they're known for is being one of the first, or perhaps the first, and I say private detective agency, but not like we think of PIs, like-

• 3:07Josh Clark?

  Not Sam Spade stuff.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  No, no, no, just a detective agency that's privatized, like, police kind of detective work.

• 3:14Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  And, you know, they did a lot of stuff, including, as we'll see, busting up bank robbers and then later busting up unions.

• 3:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it took a dark turn, for sure.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they got their, their start doing, you know, God's work by working in the abolitionist movement. By helping to free enslaved people.

• 3:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, that's one thing. So there's a lot of stuff you'll find when you dig into the history of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

• 3:43Josh Clark?

  It depends on who you're reading. Either they were pretty great and did some really great work, or they were evil from the start. And then apparently also, one of the things that complicates it is Alan Pinkerton was known to kind of hype his own company, hype his own exploits.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:03Josh Clark?

  And some people interpret that as like, personal myth-making. And whether that's correct or not, a lot of historians have delved into. And I think the answer generally is, it's a case-by-case thing. Whether it's actually true, whether it actually happened quite that way. But for the most part, from what I saw from researching this is, generally, most of the stuff can be accepted at surface level, for the most part. It's not like if you buy into the story that we're about to tell you.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:32Josh Clark?

  That you're just being totally misled. So for the most part, just relax, is what I'm trying to say.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we'll go back in time and hop in the Wayback Machine to witness the birth.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  It's 1819 in Scotland, so it's not a pretty sight.

• 4:53Josh Clark?

  No.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Giving birth back then, but little Alan Pinkerton is born in Scotland. He is the son of a police sergeant, so, you know, law enforcement was in his family roots. And he went to the United States in 1842, at the age of 23. And we should kind of mention just one thing he was involved in early on in Scotland before he left, was something called the Chartist Movement, which was, we're not going to get super into it, but it was basically a movement of the working class over there that tried, one of the main things they tried to do was extend voting rights to all men, non-landowners, that is.

• 5:33Josh Clark?

  Right, yeah, and election of parliamentary members, that kind of stuff. This basically democratic reform in England. And at the time, this was considered radical politics.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:42Josh Clark?

  And Alan Pinkerton actually fled the country with his family, because the Fuzz was looking for him, essentially. And they landed in the Chicago area, Dundee, Illinois, appropriately enough.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:55Josh Clark?

  And he decided that he would become a cooper.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:59Josh Clark?

  Which is somebody who makes barrels. And I guess he was a pretty decent barrel maker, because he did it for a little while.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a trade he learned in Scotland, so he opened up that cooperage in Dundee, like you said. And a fortuitous incident happened as a Cooper when he was on apparently this sort of abandoned or maybe just not claimed land, cutting wood, looking for wood for barrels. And he discovered a hideout of some counterfeiters. He rustled up a posse, got some citizens together and captured them. And for his efforts, got a lot of local notoriety and they said, hey, how about you become deputy sheriff here in Kane County, Illinois? And this is in 1846. And he said, well, I guess dad was a was a copper and so maybe I should be too, or a quasi-copper at least.

• 6:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, this was actually before Chicago had an established police force.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:55Josh Clark?

  And it was a big deal to be a cop. And if you were a cop, they also called them watchmen because in a lot of cases, that's what it amounted to. Like these, these men would not go into the highest crime areas and they would avoid the most dangerous criminals. And there were just a few handfuls of them. But Pinkerton made a name for himself very quickly as somebody who had just like a sixth sense for just knowing when somebody was up to no good and following them and seeing what they were up to. For being fearless.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:28Josh Clark?

  And for not accepting bribes. He was as honest as the day is long as far as bribery is concerned. And that made him stand out. And he started kind of moving up the ranks pretty quickly and moved from Kane County to Cook County where he worked in the assessor's office protecting Steven Spielberg.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Well, I'm not sure I get the reference.

• 7:52Josh Clark?

  From Blues Brothers. Remember, wasn't Steven Spielberg, the Cook County assessor, eating the sandwich when they come to pay the taxes?

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Uh, Frank Oz?

• 8:00Josh Clark?

  No, Frank Oz was the, the guy in the property room.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Oh, was Spielberg in that too? Okay.

• 8:08Josh Clark?

  I'm pretty sure he was the assessor at the Cook County assessor's office.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  I believe you. I just, I don't, I shamefully don't know Blues Brothers as well as clearly you do.

• 8:16Josh Clark?

  So either I'm like really just making this stuff up, but we've had this conversation and you were fully on board with Spielberg being the assessor.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Oh, you know me.

• 8:28Josh Clark?

  And I mean, this was like two weeks ago.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  No, it wasn't.

• 8:31Josh Clark?

  Okay, it wasn't two weeks ago, but we have had this conversation. I know we have.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  I've just turned 54, so things are slipping.

• 8:38Josh Clark?

  All right, I'll ease off.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, so that's what happened. Eventually, he would also be a special agent for the US Post Office. And finally, in 1850, he started the detective agency, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. It apparently was the first detective, he was named the first detective in Chicago, I think, previous to this, at just 31 years old. And from the beginning, from 1850 till the end of emancipation, like I mentioned, from the outset, he worked to assist the escape and freeing of enslaved people. I think he even had to stop, like volunteer to stop on the Underground Railroad.

• 9:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so there was one, he apparently was bosom friends with John Brown, as he put it. He had a real chance to coin the term bosom buddies, but he didn't do it.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  Bosom friends?

• 9:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  Doesn't have the ring, does it?

• 9:30Josh Clark?

  No, it really doesn't. But John Brown, the white abolitionist guerrilla, essentially, made a raid on a few farms in Missouri and ended up freeing 11 enslaved people and leading them to Canada. And one of the stops was with Allan Pinkerton in Chicago. And Pinkerton, by this time, was wealthy enough that he paid for, I guess, the train ride from Chicago on to Detroit for everybody who John Brown had busted out. So he definitely was an abolitionist. And from what I read, it was like, from the moment he landed in the United States, he was an abolitionist. This wasn't like him pumping up his image years later.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. So a lot of the other work they were doing, they were doing other, you know, work as an agency besides working in the emancipation, or I guess, the abolitionist movement. But this was, you know, again, in and around Chicago that didn't have a real police department at the time. And he, they didn't exactly work as cops, though. It was sort of this weird hybrid of a thing. Like, they were, it wasn't like police, it wasn't like a private detective agency, but they also weren't like full-on cops. It was kind of hard to define at the time.

• 10:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think one of the big distinction was is they weren't out there like actively seeking crime as part of the public good. They were hired to find

• 10:57Speaker 02

  Like specific things, right?

• 10:58Josh Clark?

  Specific criminals or to prevent specific crimes by corporations typically. And one of the early employers or clients, I guess, were the railroads. Because at the time, people would steal from railroads left and right. There were just so many goods going across the United States. It was just too tempting. And they started, I think, the first railroad, possibly, if not one of the first, was the Illinois Central Railroad. And they worked security and did detective work for this railroad. And this would be a significant client for Pinkerton to land throughout the rest of his life, because the corporate attorney for the Illinois Central Railroad at the time was Abraham Lincoln.

• 11:41Josh Clark?

  And the president of the railroad was William McClellan. And when you put those two together, you have some high-powered Civil War people on the Union side. And as we'll see, Alan Pinkerton joined them in the Civil War.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you've ever seen, there weren't a lot of photographs back then, but there's a very famous photograph of Lincoln at Antietam. Have you ever seen this one?

• 12:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I was looking at it today.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that's Pinkerton on the left. He's with two dudes standing in front of that canvas tent. And that's Pinkerton on the left and Major General John McLaren on the right of Lincoln, who always just, not forget, but anytime you see a photo like that where you, and there aren't many where you see like full-size, the full-size Lincoln doll.

• 12:25Josh Clark?

  Right, yeah.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  Or cardboard cutout. He's just impossibly tall for back then. And then that stovepipe hat just adds to it, obviously. But I don't know if he wore that hat to further intimidate people, but he was just such a tall, lanky guy. It's just odd-looking for that time period.

• 12:42Josh Clark?

  For sure. I have trouble, anytime I say stovepipe hat, not saying stove top hat.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  Instead of potatoes.

• 12:50Josh Clark?

  Is that always on stove top stuffing?

• 12:52Speaker 02

  Did you eat that stuff?

• 12:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Ah, we never got to eat that stuff. My mom didn't buy that stuff.

• 12:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, we ate that stuff for sure. We ate all sorts of weird stuff like that.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Isn't it just like dehydrated breadcrumbs?

• 13:05Josh Clark?

  Yes, but very tasty and savory.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  And what do you do? You just mix it with some or put it on a casserole topper?

• 13:15Josh Clark?

  You put it in a pot with some, wait, you boil a little water and then you add it to the water, soaks up the water and then you add like 10 sticks of butter, which is really what drives the whole thing home.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 13:27Josh Clark?

  And then, yeah, you put it in your mouth directly from the pot typically.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  All right. Well, this episode is clearly brought to you by stove top stuffing instead of potatoes.

• 13:36Josh Clark?

  Hey, one other thing too, while we're on a tangent, I mentioned Sam Spade earlier. I cannot recommend enough the limited series Monsieur Spade. I think it's on Netflix starring Clive Owen. Have you seen it?

• 13:48Speaker 02

  I have not.

• 13:50Josh Clark?

  God, it's so good. But at the same time, I've never seen such a tightly constructed show just come totally off the rails in like the last hour.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  In a bad way?

• 14:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I mean, ultimately compared to the rest of the show, it's, it's bad, but it's almost like they forgot that they had to wrap it up and they just shot a scene and that was it. And it was like so totally improbable and just stood out so far from the rest of the series that you're just like, what? But luckily the rest of the series is so great, it doesn't really damage it at all.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Oh, well, you led me down the right path with Black Dove, so I'll give it a shot.

• 14:31Josh Clark?

  I'm, I'm really glad you guys liked that. Did you finish it?

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's good. That one fell apart at the end too.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  Ah, you think? Huh. I liked it. Maybe you just don't like things ending.

• 14:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. Maybe not.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  All right. Uh, back to who are we talking about here? Pinkerton, not stovepipe or stuffing.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  So like I said, he was, or like you said, I guess he was buddies with Lincoln,

• 15:00Speaker 02

  pre-Civil War and had gotten to know, uh, what was his name?

• 15:04Josh Clark?

  William McClellan, who would become the general.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 15:08Josh Clark?

  The head of the Union forces.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  That's right. So that leads us to a story, a pretty major story early on. I guess it's not that early on. It's about 11 years into the detective agency. But Pinkerton learned of a assassination plot against President-elect Lincoln at the time. And there was a barber in Baltimore from Corsica. His name was Cipriano Fandini.

• 15:33Josh Clark?

  Very nice.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  And he wanted to kill Abraham Lincoln when he was coming through Baltimore, when Lincoln was on his way to Washington. And Pinkerton, you know, found out about this and was like, you're not going to kill my buddy. I'm going to thwart your plan.

• 15:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he did. This was apparently like part of a general plan to prevent Lincoln from making it to his inauguration in Washington, right? Just kill him in Baltimore.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  That would have done it.

• 15:58Josh Clark?

  Problem solved. Right? So as Lincoln got toward Baltimore, they enacted a plan where he was taken off of the train at a stop, I think like Harrisburg or something, right before Baltimore. And he was disguised. And he basically played the brother of a woman named Kate Warren, who was a detective who we'll talk about in a second. And she escorted him on another train through Baltimore that went through at night. Again, in disguise, no one knew who he was. And one of the things that kind of came out of this story that was so significant was that Kate Warren stayed up all night and watched over Abraham Lincoln

• 16:42Josh Clark?

  on this train ride to Washington DC. And that kind of coined this term or this slogan that they adopted, "We never sleep," and led to the logo, which was this open eye, like the all-seeing eye that's watching you that never sleeps.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that eventually led to the, just the term, "private eyes," right?

• 17:01Josh Clark?

  Yes, exactly.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I imagine Lincoln was a pretty hard guy to disguise now that I think about his height, that mustacheless beard and that hat. Like, they're probably like, "Take off the hat to begin with."

• 17:14Josh Clark?

  They did.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  First things first, get that hat off your head.

• 17:17Josh Clark?

  Right. Get that stove top hat off your head.

• 17:19Speaker 02

  And they got a Sharpie. They drew on a mustache. And then they, they probably put him, if they would have been smart, they would have put him like in a wheelchair or something.

• 17:28Josh Clark?

  As a matter of fact, I saw that he was, I guess the term that you would use today is like he posed as a handicap brother to Kate Warren.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  Oh, there you go. Oh, and told him to lower his voice.

• 17:42Josh Clark?

  It was very good to meet you.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  It was very shocking still when everyone saw Lincoln and Daniel Day Lewis came out like this.

• 17:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I know.

• 17:53Josh Clark?

  It was quite a choice and only Daniel Day Lewis would have been allowed to do that to you.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 17:58Josh Clark?

  Anybody else, the director have been like, what are you doing?

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. You don't question him. So you mentioned Kate Warren, is it Warren and not Warnie?

• 18:07Josh Clark?

  I think it's Warren.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Okay, W A R N E. She's very notable too, though, aside from just assisting in this plot to save Lincoln, or I guess action to save Lincoln against the plot.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  She was a detective, like Pinkerton in a very forward thinking sort of way in 1856, hired her after she convinced him like, hey, you got, you know, there are things that women can do, places we can infiltrate, information we can get in ways that men cannot. And he saw the value in that, hired her, and then I think about four years later, made her head of the Female Detective Bureau. So they kind of staffed up with some, some women to work in these undercover roles.

• 18:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and it's really like, this was unheard of. So 1856 is when he hires her. The first actual sworn policewoman that I could find in the United States was a woman named Lola Baldwin in Portland, Oregon. In, yeah, in 1908.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 19:07Josh Clark?

  So 44 plus eight is 54, 52 years? Yeah, 52 years ahead of schedule. Pinkerton hired a woman and made her a very famous detective.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  And just super smart, you know, because she was right on the money. I'm sure there were great assets to their cause.

• 19:25Josh Clark?

  For sure. You want to take a break?

• 19:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 19:29Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 19:48Josh Clark?

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• 20:51Josh Clark?

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• 22:10Speaker 02

  All right, so we're back with more on Pinkerton. The Civil War would begin, and Lincoln put George McClellan, who we've previously mentioned as someone who knew Pinkerton through the railroad business, put him in charge of the Army of the Potomac. And he said, hey, Pinkerton does pretty good work. I'm going to bring this guy in as sort of a head spy. We'll call it like a Secret Service division. And he worked under, Alan Pinkerton, that is, worked under the codename Major E.J. Allen, and was pretty good at rooting out spies, but not so good at intelligence gathering and interpretation.

• 22:47Josh Clark?

  No, he rooted out a spy ring led by a woman named Rose O'Neill-Greenhow, who was a southerner, but was still like the toast of Washington DC society. And she was really running a, like, very sophisticated and very developed spy ring for the Confederacy. And he found her out, busted everybody. It was a big deal.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:10Josh Clark?

  But with estimating troop strength, no. He may have, single-handedly, added years on to the Civil War. When he told McClellan, General McClellan, that he estimated the Confederates had between, I think, 100,000 or 200,000 troops?

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I saw 200.

• 23:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So, at the time, Robert Ely had 40,000 to 45,000 troops. So he grossly overestimated it. And McClellan had something like 76,000 troops. So they could have very easily overwhelmed the Confederacy early on.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:48Josh Clark?

  Had Pinkerton not overestimated the troops and had, I also saw McClellan didn't vet that information at all, he just took it on face. And by the way, all of you Civil War buffs, if you can go back and unsend your emails, it's not William McClellan, it's George B. McClellan. I'm sorry, I misspoke.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  Oh. I think I said William too, didn't I? Or did I?

• 24:08Josh Clark?

  I led you down the wrong path.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  Okay. So Pinkerton would eventually leave his role in military intelligence. I think this was in 1862 after McClellan, who had hired him, was demoted essentially. He lost his whatever, not rank.

• 24:28Josh Clark?

  Role?

• 24:29Speaker 02

  Huh?

• 24:30Josh Clark?

  Position?

• 24:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess he lost his position as rank leader or whatever.

• 24:34Josh Clark?

  Those are made up terms.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Not gonna be emailed by Civil War buffs at all. And then he said, all right, let me go back, you know, he still had his private detective agency.

• 24:45Josh Clark?

  Rank leader.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  So let me go back to doing that. And I guess we can talk a little bit about some of the other innovations, you know, aside from hiring women to work as infiltrators and moles. He, and I believe we've talked about this in one of our crime episodes.

• 25:01Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Did we do one on mugshots or just?

• 25:04Josh Clark?

  I think it came up.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Criminal databases, maybe?

• 25:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Alphonse Bertillon or Berillon, he, in the, I think, like, the 1840s, came up with the idea of mugshots, fingerprints, using like head measurements to

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 25:20Josh Clark?

  Basically create a database of criminals so that they couldn't pose as other people. And I guess that Pinkerton heard about this and brought it to the United States.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, but when he brought it to the United States, he wanted to sort of codify it, I guess, and make it a more usable system and standardize everything. So he, you know, made all the pictures the same size. He essentially made little yearbooks. He made, got handwriting samples and he would make these books and he would send them out. And they called it the rogues' gallery and it was sort of the beginning of the, you know, the United States criminal database.

• 25:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and each picture had a senior superlative underneath it. So there was like, most likely to unnecessarily shoot someone you're robbing in the knee.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:05Josh Clark?

  Stuff like that.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  That's good.

• 26:07Josh Clark?

  I also saw that this was so sophisticated that it wouldn't be until the FBI was formed that something like a criminal database like this would be expanded upon, basically.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Did you get a senior superlative?

• 26:21Josh Clark?

  I did. Most likely to talk about criminal databases.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 26:26Josh Clark?

  Did I, in reality? I don't think so. No, because my, my senior quote was, leave me alone.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  We had fun ones and then real ones, like official ones. And I got one of each.

• 26:41Josh Clark?

  Oh, well, where were they?

• 26:42Speaker 02

  I got, actually, I got two of the unofficials. For the unofficials, I got best style.

• 26:49Josh Clark?

  Oh, nice. That's really saying something in high school, man.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  I guess so. I don't, I'm not sure how I won that one, actually. And then I got most fun on a date, which was very ironic because I literally dated one person my senior year. And I was just the good friend to all the girls that I wanted to date.

• 27:07Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  I was that guy. But then the official ones that were in the yearbook, best all around boy.

• 27:13Josh Clark?

  Jeez, man. I see you in a different light now.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  Well, you know, it's pretty, I still got my T shirt. I'll wear it occasionally.

• 27:21Josh Clark?

  Best all around boy?

• 27:22Speaker 02

  Best all around boy.

• 27:24Josh Clark?

  I think that's your new nickname.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  B A.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  A.

• 27:29Josh Clark?

  R B?

• 27:30Speaker 02

  B. Well, best all around, technically.

• 27:33Josh Clark?

  Oh, I say all around. But then again, I call stove top hats.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  So best, best B A Barb, right?

• 27:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  All right. Just call me Barb from now on.

• 27:44Josh Clark?

  Okay, Barb. I have a beloved aunt named Barb.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Do you? I do, too. Or Emily does. So she's sort of my aunt as well.

• 27:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you can claim her.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  All right.

• 27:55Josh Clark?

  So there's another thing that Pinkerton did to really kind of help establish his, his agency is like just nationally recognized and also kind of heroes. They were considered heroes across the United States. Because they went after bad guys and they usually got their man. They were very persistent and dogged. Sometimes they would pursue criminals for years.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:19Josh Clark?

  Like, it wasn't like, well, we tried for a month and we gave up. Like, they would just keep going until they found the person. They would pursue them into Canada sometimes. Into Mexico and beyond. And I guess one of the reasons why they were revered is because they had a code of conduct that was like strictly implemented. It was things like, like we will take no bribes.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 28:43Josh Clark?

  Which is a big one at the time.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:46Josh Clark?

  Probably still is now. Will never compromise with criminals.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:51Josh Clark?

  We will partner with local law enforcement when possible.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 28:56Josh Clark?

  This one stood out to me. I thought this was kind of upstanding. They wouldn't take divorce cases or any case that could create a scandal for anybody.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:05Josh Clark?

  I thought that was pretty cool.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, pretty stand up. They also turned down reward money and they, he paid his agents pretty well, apparently. And this is just sort of business nuts and bolts, but he had a pledge to never raise fees without the client knowing. Like, in other words, I'm not going to hand you a bill at the end. That's not what we talked about.

• 29:23Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  And also would just keep all of his clients very well informed. He, they had internal rules that were like, I think in the pamphlet, the general principles of Pinkerton's National Detective Agency. They said things like, the agent must be of a high order of mind, must possess clear and honest, comprehensive understanding, force of will, vigor of body, and you can't drink on the job unless you absolutely have to. As assumed, assumingly, some part of like some mole situation where you're like, hey, do you want to go to the bar with us?

• 29:58Josh Clark?

  Right. Or you better drink this rye whiskey or else we'll know you're a Pinkerton man.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 30:04Josh Clark?

  They also, unless you had a direct order from your superior to, you weren't allowed to use alcohol to get like, confessions or anything out of suspects.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  Like get someone super drunk?

• 30:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:17Josh Clark?

  I mean, these are all pretty great, like codes of conduct.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  For back then, totally, yeah.

• 30:23Josh Clark?

  I did not see any stories of like rogue Pinkerton agents or that this was all just, you know, a whitewashing and they actually didn't behave like this at all. They do seem to have been pretty upstanding. And then, so the other thing that really expanded the legend of the Pinkertons and probably in part of why we still understand and know them today is Alan Pinkerton wrote a bunch of books, or at least published a series of books under his name. That were like true crime detective stories.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:53Josh Clark?

  This would have been in the 1860s, 1870s, I think. So this is like the dawn of detective stories.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would think so.

• 31:02Josh Clark?

  I don't remember when Poe wrote Murder in the Rue Morgue. Was that the first detective story?

• 31:07Speaker 02

  I don't know, but I mean, it was, it was early on in the going for sure.

• 31:10Josh Clark?

  It was ahead of its time.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:12Josh Clark?

  One of the most famous ones was The Detective in the Somnambulist, right?

• 31:16Speaker 02

  Yes, and that is one in which he as the character and Kate Warren as her character, they catch a murderer, they go undercover, of course, and catch a murderer and a bank robber using a Pinkerton agent, as always, that posed as a ghost to get a confession.

• 31:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I saw there was another one where Kate Warren posed as a fortune teller to get a confession out of some book.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  Oh, that's pretty smart.

• 31:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but these are like the books that they're saying like, this is, this is what we did. And I mean, like, if this was even remotely close, it must have been thrilling to have been a Pinkerton detective at this time.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 31:54Josh Clark?

  Because this is, again, when they were just a cause celebre in America and did not have the blemished reputation that they have today.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, and a book potentially being like a character in a book would be, you know, back then is sort of tantamount to like, they, they made a TV show about us or something.

• 32:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and we played like a semi fictional version of ourselves or something like that.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 32:18Josh Clark?

  One of the other things they were known for, Chuck, was nabbing outlaws in the Wild West, because as the United States expanded westward and the frontier just kept going, it was a wild and raucous and lawless place. You might have a marshal, I know we talked about the marshal service, serving as the law enforcement out west, but there, it was kind of far and few between. So the Pinkertons filled a real need at the time, because one of the first things that developed after the Civil War was train robberies.

• 32:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you got these, like you said earlier, it's a pretty good take when you rob a train and, you know, you get them out in the middle of nowhere, which is kind of the great, the great thing about robbing trains, everybody, is you can just, you know, ride your horses up, you've seen on the movies, in the middle of nowhere where there's no one around to help. But in this case, the Pinkertons are there. One of the first gangs that they got was the Reno Gang. After the Civil War, they started robbing trains in Indiana and Missouri and banks and other places, but not from Reno, but they were the Reno's, John Frank, Simeon, and William Reno. And in October 1866, for instance, they robbed the Ohio and Mississippi Express to

• 33:36Speaker 02

  the tune of $15,000 in 1866 money, which is a huge, huge haul, were arrested, but they posted bail and then started robbing again, kind of right away, trains and banks. And so the Pinkerton's were like, we're on the job. I think the Adams Express Company was like, we've had enough. We got to hire these guys.

• 33:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah. In the two years that the Reno gang was active, they stole about a half a million dollars in 1860's money.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 34:05Josh Clark?

  That was a ton of cash. They were very successful. So yeah, they definitely caught the attention of the train companies. Adams Express hires the Pinkerton's and they start hunting down the Reno gang. And this is a good example of them just using dogged persistence over and over and over again. They just kind of one by one captured the gang members. The first was John Reno, not Jean Reno from Twin Peaks.

• 34:33Speaker 02

  I had that same joke.

• 34:35Josh Clark?

  They, they got him first.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:38Josh Clark?

  He may have been the leader, as far as I know. They also caught a guy named Charles Roseberry, who was a member of the gang. And I don't know if they were expecting this or not, but the, the locals who were with them when they caught Charles Roseberry, strung him up and hung him right there.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:55Josh Clark?

  When they, when they caught him. And I didn't see like what the Pinkerton's thought about this kind of thing.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of those guys were lynched and hanged. And yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure if, if, that's a good question, actually, if that was, I mean, obviously it wasn't his call, but after he hands him over, but I wonder if he was like, oh, boy, I mean, how about, how about a trial at least?

• 35:17Josh Clark?

  Right. This doesn't seem to jibe with the code of conduct.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 35:22Josh Clark?

  I also saw they recovered about $300,000 in cash in at least one instance. So you definitely got your money's worth when you hired the Pinkerton's to nab Wild West train robbers.

• 35:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I bet they weren't cheap, though. I tried to find out kind of how much they were paid, but if he was paying his agents well, which he supposedly did, then I'm sure they were not a cheap hire.

• 35:41Josh Clark?

  No. And then, things kind of went pear shaped for the Pinkerton's. As far as I can tell, this was the first time the Pinkerton's reputation took a real hit.

• 35:52Speaker 02

  With the James Gang?

• 35:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they went after the James Gang led by Frank and Jesse James. I didn't know this.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:58Josh Clark?

  But they were terrorists, Confederate terrorists during the Civil War in Missouri. That's where they were from. And Missouri was this powder keg that actually kind of helped kick off the Civil War because,

• 36:12Josh Clark?

  I guess abolitionists and pro-slavery people came together to settle Missouri and they did not get along. And during the Civil War, one of the things the James Gang did was murder Union supporters in Missouri.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:26Josh Clark?

  Not even on the front lines, these weren't even soldiers, these were civilians. They were just running around killing and terrorizing.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And, you know, after the war, of course, they gained further notoriety by robbing everything in sight. You know, trains, banks, stagecoaches, you name it. And Jesse sort of built up this, oh, what do you call it? Like a sort of legendary status among the, the poor and working class? That he was some kind of a Robin Hood type, even though there's no indication that he was ever like robbing to give to the poor.

• 36:59Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  But people would, you know, hide him and take care of him and stuff like that for some reason. But at any rate, in 1874, the Pinkerton's were hired to catch these guys, Frank and Jesse. And they sent an agent in to infiltrate the gang. His name was Joseph Witcher. And he did a pretty good job until they found out that he was an informant. And he was murdered, which kind of started the downhill tumble.

• 37:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Alan Pinkerton took this quite personally.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:30Josh Clark?

  There's a quote from him saying that as far as capturing Jesse and Frank James, there's no use talking. They must die.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:37Josh Clark?

  So if they were wanted dead or alive, he was going to bring them in dead for sure. And in 1875, early on in the year, they went to the James's family home in Missouri.

• 37:49Josh Clark?

  And Jesse and Frank James weren't home. They'd been tipped off that the Pinkerton's with a bunch of local pro-union supporters were going to be there to capture them, so they weren't there. But apparently, the Pinkerton's and their assistants didn't know this. Somebody, the Pinkerton said this was a local that did this, that they did not do this. Somebody threw a lantern into the home. I saw in the hopes of illuminating things better. Well, the lantern exploded. Yeah, exactly. The lantern exploded, killed their eight-year-old half-brother Archie, and blew their mom Zarelda's arm off. So they've killed the young boy and maimed an older woman.

• 38:32Josh Clark?

  And the Pinkerton's are the ones who took the hit reputation-wise.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, and after all that, you know, PR work, a lot of that was undone because of this, basically. But it's not like they've shut down or anything. And didn't they go after some other gangs, too?

• 38:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, very famously, they were the ones that chased Butch Cassidy and Sundance, the Sundance Kid, down to Bolivia, where the Bolivian army killed them. And they were famous for catching and summarily executing all of the members of the Apple Dumpling Gang.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  All right, we'll take a break now. I'm gonna contemplate that joke. And we're gonna come back and talk about what the Pinkerton's were kind of known for from this point forward, right after this.

• 39:34Josh Clark?

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• 40:37Josh Clark?

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• 41:09Josh Clark?

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• 41:56Josh Clark?

  Okay, so after the Wild West kind of came and went, they got into corporate affairs, firmly on the side of the corporation. At the time, there was a lot of labor movements, a lot of workers' rights stuff going on. And don't forget, Alan Pinkerton had to flee the UK because he was such a radical labor supporter.

• 42:23Josh Clark?

  Now his agency is the premier security group and labor organization infiltrators. This is what they started doing. And this is where they're the bad name, the blemish on their name that's still around today, really started to develop because they they would, at this point, do whatever corporations wanted them to do as long as they paid them.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know, what corporations generally wanted them to do was bust up the unions, was to infiltrate the companies and bust up unions, which is what they ultimately started doing for, you know, a lot of money. It started out as an employee testing service in 1855 and sort of grew over the next few years. And initially, it was like, hey, let's get some moles in there and see if we can uncover, like,

• 43:13Speaker 02

  illegal activity, people stealing from the company and stuff like that.

• 43:16Josh Clark?

  But then it's That's understandable.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. But then that sort of expanded. And I guess the people hiring them were like, hey, since you're in there, why don't you kind of let us know what's going on, what they're talking about and like if they like management, if they're discontented. And if they're, you know, most importantly, if they're starting to organize and talk about forming a labor society, which, you know, of course, would ultimately be a union.

• 43:38Josh Clark?

  Yes. This became such a part of their job that the Order of Railway Conductors started warning their members that there's Pinkerton's undercover who are watching you and not just watching you to see if you're stealing, they're watching you to see if you want to form a union. And this was the, I mean, this was a terrible direction for them to start to go down because this was such a militant time. I mean, there were like anarchists running around, like throwing bombs in the United States. There were labor unions that soldiers were sometimes brought out to shoot. I mean, it was a really rough time as far as like labor and management goes because

• 44:19Josh Clark?

  there was just this struggle to say, who owns the the fruit of our labor?

• 44:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:25Josh Clark?

  You who's paying for the raw materials or us who's actually turning those raw materials into? The end product, and maybe it's not one or the other, but I guarantee it's more than the share that you're giving us, a factory owner. And this, so this struggle became violent and many, many times. And again, like I said, the Pinkerton's landed firmly or started out firmly on the side of corporations and they stayed there.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, we should probably highlight the Molly Maguires. That was one of the more famous cases. They were a secret society in Ireland initially. And then in 1860s in Pennsylvania, it kind of reemerged from Irish immigrants because they were coal miners there. And at the time, they were facing a lot of discrimination. The job conditions were not good, working long hours. They were very dangerous. And they were, you know, a lot of times, living in company housing, paid in company script that they could only spend at the company store. They were just completely folded into this corporation as almost enslaved people in some ways. You know, ultimately, they had their freedom,

• 45:30Speaker 02

  of course, but it was, they were, they were owned by the company essentially. Finally, in the 1860s, supervisors started receiving these coffin notices, basically, from the workers saying, hey, we're the Molly Maguires. And coffin notice means that your time on earth is nigh, and you're not going to be around very long. So the writing was on the wall that things were about to turn violent.

• 45:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and it did start to get violent. And I saw that the Molly Maguires started murdering and assassinating some of the, some of the members of the corporation, like foremen, who were the, the people they worked with the most directly and who were the most brutal toward them. But I also saw that this was in retaliation for members of the Molly Maguires being murdered first.

• 46:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:19Josh Clark?

  Either way, it turned violent pretty terribly. What the Molly Maguires did not know is that there was a Pinkerton man who they knew as James McKenna, but whose real name was James McParland, who had spent two years by now, working undercover and ingratiating himself with the Molly Maguires, or even beyond the Molly Maguires, just the Irish Coal miners who worked and lived in this area. So much so, he became the secretary of the the local lodge of the ancient order of Hiberians, an Irish Catholic fraternal organization. So he really worked his way into it and he got a lot of intel on them. And ultimately turned state's evidence and got 20 men executed.

• 47:05Josh Clark?

  Almost exclusively on his testimony.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. On charges of murder, arson and kidnapping. 10 were hanged in 1877. 10 were then hanged in 1878, I guess. And this is one of the most like insider jobs of all time. I think there was a historian Harold Arand who said it was one of the most astonishing, astounding, excuse me, surrenders of sovereignty in American history. Because what happened was Franklin Gowan, who was the guy who ran the company who hired the Pinkerton's to begin with. He was the chief prosecutor. So it was all this inside job. These guys were arrested by a private police force.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  And then the coal company's attorneys prosecuted them. And the only thing that the state did was like, here, use this courtroom and use our, our gallows or whatever. And other than that, it was all just a private job to like find and execute these guys.

• 48:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, many of whom who were considered to have been innocent. They were innocent men who were executed. Again, almost exclusively on James McParland, this Pinkerton man's testimony. And yeah, it was just a total travesty from start to finish. And Pennsylvania did pardon one of the men, John Keigho, in 1979. About 100 years too late for John Keigho. But it was kind of a symbolic thing, saying like, yeah, we really screwed up in letting this company essentially form their own court and trial and executions.

• 48:41Josh Clark?

  Probably more famous, though, is the Pinkerton's role in the Homestead strike in Homestead, Pennsylvania, at one of the Carnegie steel mills.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, so in 1892, there was a union contract that expired for that steel company in Pennsylvania, there in Homestead. And Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Carnegie, a couple of robber barons we've talked about in the past, said, "All right, we're going to cut wages back. We're going to break this union," which was the Amalgamated Association of Steel and Iron Workers. And Carnegie said, "I'm out of here. I'm going to leave the country." Henry Clay Frick got involved, sort of doing the dirty work on the ground.

• 49:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  And he said, "All right, I'm going to hire the Pinkertons. We're not even negotiating yet. I'm going to bring these guys in to essentially act as guards to lock these people out."

• 49:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and so 300 Pinkerton's showed up on July 6, 1892. They were pulled down the river on barges, and they were all armed to the teeth with Winchester rifles and Colt 45s and all the modern guns you could hope for. And when they arrived, they were met with, I think, 2,000 or 3,000 Homestead, not just steelworkers, but neighbors, community members, just people who were supporting the strikers.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Angry, too.

• 50:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they were really mad, not just because they were in the midst of the strike, but because this private police force had shown up to intimidate them or possibly kill them, the way that they were armed. And so a battle ensued, like, there's no other word for it. It was a 12- or 15-hour battle.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:22Josh Clark?

  Only a dozen people died, but that's amazing to me, as violent as this battle was. They tried to, or I should say, they pushed a flaming train car at the barges to try to kill the Pinkertons. Like, that was just one thing that the strikers did. Like, it was really violent.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it is shocking that only a dozen people died. I guess it's a testament to how bad of a shot they were.

• 50:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it really was.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  Collectively. Of course, the workers, you know, they surrendered, the Pinkertons did, because they were just so far outnumbered, even though most of the... I think most of the dozen were the workers that died, but the Pinkerton's knew that they were vastly outnumbered.

• 51:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  So they surrendered, but the workers lost because Henry Clay Frick, man, I have a hard time with that one.

• 51:11Josh Clark?

  You keep wanting to say people.

• 51:12Speaker 02

  I know, Henry Clay people. Got 8,500 National Guard troops sent in after the Pinkerton's left and of course, you know, they broke the union and said, we're going to decrease your wages, we're going to increase how much you have to work. And this just became sort of a cyclical thing that was happening. The Pinkerton's, early on, they were pretty good at infiltrating, but when it came to breaking these unions, the federal government would come in with the troops and do a far better job at doing so.

• 51:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because strikers typically recognize federal troops as more legitimate than a private police force showing up, you know?

• 51:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, and just more people with more arms.

• 51:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they had Gatling guns, like as demonstrated at the end of the Wild Bunch.

• 51:56Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 51:57Josh Clark?

  You don't want to mess with those. So yeah, from those of us like looking back today, you might think, well, that's just what they did back then, which is messed up, but that's just, that was the norm. Not true. Congress actually investigated this incident. They were like, that is pretty screwed up that you hired the Pinkerton's and brought in the National Guard to essentially put this town under martial law. And as a matter of fact, Congress urged states to like pass laws to make it so that corporations couldn't hire private companies to break unions. And Ohio went so far as to say the Pinkerton's themselves are now illegal here.

• 52:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, that's true. So I mean, that really changed everything for the Pinkerton's there. As far as strike breaking goes, it took a huge hit. Couldn't get a lot of work after that, but they did go on. They did anti-union espionage work, of course. This is something I never knew at all was that they, they just, they kept going. They were acquired in 1999.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  By Securitas and I had no idea that they went on that that much further after Pinkerton's death, after Alan Pinkerton's death.

• 53:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they they trade on the name still for sure.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:09Josh Clark?

  But it's it's a massive company, I think, with like 50,000 employees and offices all over the world, but they still use the Pinkerton name. Like you can hire Pinkerton for corporate security. Apparently they'll ride along in container ships to protect against pirates.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 53:25Josh Clark?

  They've served as guards at Marilyn Monroe's funeral.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:28Josh Clark?

  Back in the 60s. I also saw that same year they escorted the Mona Lisa from France to the US.

• 53:33Speaker 02

  Wow, which is, you know, they could probably just do that under an overcoat. That thing's pretty small.

• 53:38Josh Clark?

  It is fairly small. And then one other thing where they pop up, and this made me wonder if this is where this idea came from. Apparently they're bad guys in the video game Red Dead Redemption 2, which I know for a fact that you've played.

• 53:53Speaker 02

  They very much are, figure very heavily into that storyline if you play the the story part of that.

• 54:00Josh Clark?

  Is that where you got the idea to do one on them?

• 54:02Speaker 02

  No, because I haven't played that in a long time. I'm not sure where I got it. It may have been, I don't know, I'm not really sure. They also figure in a bunch of movies, of course. They were in Deadwood. They were in The Long Riders in the 80s. And friend of the show, Paul Schneider, was in the great, great movie from 2007, The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford. And they, the Pinkerton's figure, pretty heavily in that movie, too.

• 54:30Josh Clark?

  That was a good movie. We should talk about the death of Alan Pinkerton real quick, Chuck.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's pretty unusual. He died July 1, 1884, right before his 65th birthday. And as the story goes, he slipped on a street in Chicago and bit his tongue, something, which I did when I was a kid. I had 12 stitches across the center of my tongue to put that thing back together when I was like 12. But I did not die because I'm still here. But Pinkerton died as a result of this because it turned gangrenous.

• 55:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he wouldn't go get it treated and it just kept getting worse and that was it for him. Yeah, he was put to rest near his wife. And very interestingly, he also, in his family plot, buried Kate Warren because he so admired, this is the first female detective ever hired, he so admired her and her work that he had her buried with him. She was still alive and was very unhappy about this, but he admired her that much.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  That's super cool. So she's there with him, maybe, I guess some of his sons are there, and his wife Joan.

• 55:41Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 55:42Speaker 02

  Wonderful.

• 55:42Josh Clark?

  Nice check. You got anything else?

• 55:45Speaker 02

  I got nothing else.

• 55:46Josh Clark?

  That's it for the Pinkerton's, everybody, at long last. And since I said at long last, I just triggered listener mail.

• 55:55Speaker 02

  That's right. This is a little follow up on the GPS episode. Toward the end, I kind of poked fun at Garmin as being something that, you know, like my mom uses and not like a more modern system. But it turns out Garmin is still very popular because Deanna sent me an email saying, hey, a lot of cyclists use this stuff. And I asked her why. I was like, oh, that's super interesting. I said, do you know why they have, you know, they're used by cyclists are still around in that capacity? And she said, good question. I think there are a couple of reasons why it's still the go to for GPS. They've been around forever. They've been making GPS for planes and boats since the late 80s. So they had a really big head start. And then, number two, constant refinement. While others are just starting to develop their products, Garmin was already fine tuning theirs and

• 56:40Speaker 02

  they had a 20 year head start. So they packed in a ton of extra features. For example, they introduced the first bike radar system, years before anyone else, and the radar still blows the competition away. I even have a buddy, he works for Wahoo, and he still uses a Garmin radar.

• 56:56Josh Clark?

  Very nice.

• 56:57Speaker 02

  Also, Deanna says they built a lot of brand loyalty, especially in the cycling world. Many of us still use them, even though the quality has slipped just a bit in recent years. We don't like using phones on our bikes because they're bulky and drain the batteries really fast. And Garmin just feels more polished and reliable for our needs.

• 57:14Josh Clark?

  Who was that from?

• 57:15Speaker 02

  That was from Deanna.

• 57:17Josh Clark?

  Deanna Garmin?

• 57:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 57:20Josh Clark?

  Thanks, Deanna. We appreciate that. That was a great email. And if you want to be like Deanna, you can email us, too. Send it off to [email protected].

• 57:32Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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