![]() Little is known about Warne’s early life except that she was born into a large, impoverished family in the town of Erin, New York, in 1833. Meltzer, for his part, says, “To this moment, we don’t know if Allan Pinkerton is just an amazing advocate for women’s rights, or he’s just a shrewd businessman who realizes she’s going to make him some money. Still, McNary adds, “She pointed out to him the advantages that her gender carried with it and the ability to gain confidences and positions of access that would be unavailable to him.” “It really not a customarily appropriate position for a lady.” “Allan was flummoxed at first,” says Brian McNary, current vice president of Pinkerton, which opened in 1850 and is now headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. infiltrating that world of women who are hearing and seeing people are looking right past her,” says Meltzer. In addition to making history as the first woman detective in the United States, Warne likely saved Abraham Lincoln’s life by helping to uncover-and thwart-a plot to assassinate him ahead of his March 1861 inauguration. Warne’s argument worked, and later that night, Pinkerton decided to take a chance on his unconventional applicant. ![]() Kate Warne, who'd posed as the disguised president-elect's sister, left the group after successfully delivering Lincoln to Baltimore. “What I love in that moment is she basically comes right at him and says, ‘I can see things and hear things that you’re not going to see and hear,’” explains Brad Meltzer, co-author of the 2020 bestseller The Lincoln Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill America’s 16th President-and Why It Failed.ĭepiction of Abraham Lincoln, detective Allan Pinkerton and bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon arriving in Washington, D.C. “Women have an eye for detail and are excellent observers,” she reportedly said to Pinkerton. She could infiltrate places easily, as no one would expect a woman to be an undercover detective, and befriend the wives and girlfriends of suspected criminals. No American detective agency had hired a woman investigator before. But Kate Warne, a 23-year-old widow and recent transplant from New York, had a different role in mind: She wanted to be his newest detective. He assumed she’d misunderstood a job posting by his firm, the Chicago-based Pinkerton National Detective Agency.Īs Pinkerton told the visitor, he wasn’t looking for a secretary. Oddly, the 28-year-old Tierney is never implicated in a crime here, nor does an initial review of contemporary newspapers reveal that he was ever charged with one, much less convicted.On a hot summer day in 1856, detective Allan Pinkerton looked up from his desk and greeted the young woman standing in front of him. The reader is warned that he "might be found in the Shipping or Traffic Department of some electrical concern or railway office, and he may also endeavor to obtain a position as a chauffeur or at some Vaudeville House or Moving Picture Show as he is a competent chauffer and a good singer as well." Wearing a dress coat in the photo provided for the circular, Tierney worked as a traffic clerk for the Western Electric Company in Dallas before disappearing in November, 1910. Tierney, who, according to a contemporary newspaper account, "is the 'classiest' looking of all the criminals that the police have been asked to look out for" (Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer, Feb. Three holes punched to upper portion of leaf, slightly affecting text old folds. ![]() White stock printed in black, b&w illustration. Chicago: Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, 1911. ![]()
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