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Primary Source Sets
The Homestead Strike
A Pinkerton detective agent badge.

A Pinkerton detective agent badge.

This badge is a replica of the badges worn by members of the Pinkerton Detective Agency during the second half of the nineteenth century. The top of the badge bears the “all-seeing eye” with Pinkerton’s motto, “We Never Sleep,” below. The center of the badge reads “Pinkerton National Detective Agent” above “New York” in a cartouche. The Pinkerton Agency was established by Allen Pinkerton in 1850 and became famous for protecting President Lincoln during the Civil War.

Citation Information
“Badge, ‘Pinkerton National Detective Agent, New York,’” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/01e0e9ecfb2168cfe16c2456f18755ff.
Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.
Courtesy of National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center via Smithsonian Institution.

Tips for Students

For this source, consider:

  • the author's point of view
  • the author's purpose
  • historical context
  • audience

Item 9 of 14 in the Primary Source Set The Homestead Strike

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A photograph of Henry Frick’s office at Carnegie Steel Works, Homestead, Pennsylvania, July 25, 1892.
A photograph of men approaching a pay car on payday at the Carnegie Steel Works, Homestead, Pennsylvania, 1907.
A photograph of men feeding open-hearth furnaces at Carnegie Steel Works, Homestead, Pennsylvania, 1907.
A postcard illustrating the Carnegie blast furnaces along the Monongahela River, Homestead, Pennsylvania, 1908-1909.
An excerpt from AAISW President William Weihe’s Congressional investigation testimony about pay scale changes at Homestead, 1892.
A photograph of strikers on a hill overlooking Carnegie Steel Works in Homestead during the lockout, 1892.
An excerpt from a contemporary history describing Frick’s engagement of the Pinkertons and their history of violence, 1893.
An excerpt from Henry Frick’s testimony during the Congressional investigation into Pinkerton detectives at Homestead, 1892.
A Pinkerton detective agent badge.
An excerpt from a contemporary history describing the violent interaction between strikers and Pinkerton detectives, 1893.
An illustration from Harper’s Weekly, July 6, 1892, showing the burning of the barges that had brought Pinkerton detectives.
An illustration from Harper’s Weekly, July 6, 1892, showing a Homestead mob “assailing Pinkerton men on their way to the temporary prison.”
A political cartoon by Clifford Berryman about the pervasive threat of strikes during the post-World War II era, May 16, 1946.
A photograph of a Safeway lockout of Teamsters employees in Los Angeles, California, 1964.

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