H
ISTORISKA INSTITUTIONEN
The Molly Maguires and the Detectives.
An analysis of the relationship between the use of undercover policing
and violent labor conflict.
Abstract
This paper evaluates the role of private policing in the patterns of violence that were prevalent in the mining regions of eastern Pennsylvania during the 1860s and 1870s, and which were attributed to an Irish secret society called the “Molly Maguires”. This topic has long been subject to academic and political controversy, and the use of agent provocateur tactics by the Pinkerton agency has been strongly suggested, but never conclusively proven.
Drawing on existing research on secret societies, private policing, and the role of the agent provocateur, this paper combines two strands of research that have so far largely been discussed separately. The study then attempts to close the gap on the agent provocateur question by applying methods from criminological history. Through treating different sources as conflicting testimonies, as well as using GIS to provide new insights on crime patterns in the region, it analyzes the complex relationship between undercover policing and the groups under its surveillance. The results provide decisive new evidence regarding the agent provocateur question and the role of the Pinkerton agency during the Molly Maguire trials, as well as the character of the surviving evidence.
Acknowledgments
As Mark Bulik notes in his analysis of the cultural backgrounds of the Molly Maguires, “in south Fermanagh […] to “join” work means to begin it—the assumption being that work cannot be begun alone.”1 This thesis is an example of just how true that statement is, as I joined work with
the finest, most brilliant, and most mutually supportive class any student could hope for. First of all, my deepest gratitude goes to everyone in the Uppsala University Modern History Class of 2021. Your support and encouragement kept me going in these challenging times, especially as the deadline was drawing closer. Specifically, to Martha Dunster, Erik Larsson, and my dear friend, Sam Marknäs, who embodies the best aspects of rural American culture. I am greatly in debt for the endless hours of discussion which helped shape my understanding of that odd and peculiar part of the world.
I would also like to thank my supervisor, Helene Lööw, whose advice across different stages of this project was outstanding, and whose invaluable expertise in the history of policing enabled me to develop this thesis into something so much more complex and multi-faceted than I initially imagined it to be.
Lars M. Andersson, Uppsala University, for the incredible dedication and support he gave to all students in this program, and his encouragement that I pursue this particular topic.
Finally, Kevin Kenny, author of Making Sense of the Molly Maguires, for a very enlightening e-mail exchange. Being able to discuss my work and my initial theories with the leading expert in the field was a great honor, and I truly appreciate him taking the time to do so.
Table of contents
1. Introduction ... 1
1.1 Black Thursday ... 1
1.2 The eye that never sleeps ... 2
1.3 Theory ... 3
1.4 Previous research ... 3
1.5 Approach, purpose, and research questions ... 4
2. Methods ... 6
3. Irish Ways and Irish Laws ... 8
3.1 Steelboys, Ribbonmen and Whiteboys: social banditry and retributive justice ... 9
3.2 Mummery and mythology ... 14
3.3 The children of Molly Maguire ... 15
3.4 The Ancient Order of Hibernians ... 17
4. A surrender of sovereignty ... 20
4.1 Private policing ... 21
4.2 The Pinkertons ... 24
4.3 Informants, infiltrators, and agents provocateurs ... 28
5. The migration of a specter ... 32
5.1 The making of a scapegoat ... 34
5.2 The first wave... 40
5.3 The Pinkertons become involved ... 51
5.4 Trial by perjury ... 60
5.5 Aftermath ... 68
6. On the ‘agent provocateur’ theory ... 71
6.1 Existing literature ... 72
6.2 Assessing the evidence ... 75
6.2.1 The case of Gomer James ... 76
6.2.2 Other cases ... 80 6.2.3 Changes in leadership ... 82 6.2.4 Ethnic tensions ... 84 6.2.5 Vigilantism ... 86 6.3 GIS analysis ... 87 7. Conclusion ... 94
8. Sources and literature ... 99
8.2 Published sources ... 99
8.3 Literature... 100
9. Appendix ... 105
Appendix A: Membership list of the AOH ... 105
Appendix B: Letters... 108
Appendix C: Newspaper clippings ... 114
Appendix D: Database of incidents for chapter 6.3 ... 117
List of figures Figure 1: Map of Schuylkill County, 1870s, Library of Congress... 34
Figure 2: Coffin notice published in the Miners’ Journal, March 12th, 1864 ... 45
Figure 3: Comparison of the spatial distribution of Molly Maguire assassinations, by author ... 88
Figure 4: Incidents from first quarter of 1873 through second quarter of 1874, by author ... 89
Figure 5: Incidents from third quarter of 1874 through fourth quarter of 1875, by author ... 90
Figure 6: Incidents in northern Schuylkill, October–December 1874, by author ... 92
Figure 7: Incidents in northern Schuylkill, first half of 1875, by author ... 93
Figure 8: Incidents in northern Schuylkill, second half of 1875, by author ... 93
1. Introduction
1.1 Black ThursdayOn June 21st, 1877, ten men were executed by hanging in Pottsville, Pennsylvania; and in nearby
Mauch Chunk. All of them were or had been coal miners, and all of them were Irish. The date of the executions would become known throughout the region as ‘Black Thursday’, and the trials in this style would continue, claiming another ten lives before finally abating in 1879.
This, however, is almost the entire part of the story that is unanimously accepted as fact. Whose justice had been served here? The men on trial were said to have been part of a murderous conspiracy, the Molly Maguires, accused of a total of 16 murders in the region. For a long time, this narrative was accepted as factual, and there remains a tendency even among some historians to do so. However, others have contended that the evidence is dubious, resting mostly on the word of a private detective who had infiltrated the local mining communities, on behalf of a local mining operator. In some cases, the Molly Maguires have been reinterpreted as martyrs of the labor movement. The convictions were obtained in trials that even by the standards of the day were farcical,2 leading to an eventual posthumous pardon by the governor of Pennsylvania in 1976, and
a renewed parliamentary debate in 2005.3
However, this did not provide a definite end to the scholarly discussion. Most historians today take a relatively nuanced approach to the matter, accepting the existence of the Molly Maguires as a fact while arguing that the violence was exacerbated by the conduct of local elites and private police forces. This is in large parts as convincing as it is convenient. By avoiding the risks associated with the topic, such studies may establish a minimal consensus, but they often have significant blind spots. Harold Aurand’s conclusion that the topic permits “great historical elasticity”,4 due to the vague nature of available evidence, remains valid. Kevin Kenny, one of the
leading scholars on this subject, largely ignored the more controversial aspects in his 1998 monograph Making Sense of the Molly Maguires, only to claim 16 years later that the aforementioned private detective was “almost certainly” an agent provocateur.5 Kenny’s book, while still a seminal
work of research, is thus in need of revision, and the author implicitly acknowledged that when making the statement just quoted.
2 Cf. Kenny 2014, p. 24
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1.2 The eye that never sleeps
If the legacy of the Molly Maguires is contested, similarly strong contradictions exist for the legacy of Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Founded by Scottish immigrant Allan Pinkerton in the 1850s, the agency became metonymic for private detectives in general throughout the late 19th and
early 20th century – but also for professional strikebreakers. To this day, they are celebrated as
heroes of law and order by some and reviled as the hired thugs of an anti-labor conspiracy by others. A 1996 Pinkerton biography states that “the popular image [...] is that the Pinkertons were strike-breakers when, in fact, they were acting within the law in the protection of industrial premises against a violent mob ten times their number.”6 A stark contrast exists between the
self-representation of the Pinkertons as fearless protectors of the law-abiding citizenry, which found its way into some historiographical representations of the agency, and the numerous scandals regarding the use of agent provocateur tactics, involvement in lynching, and similar allegations.7
In the Molly Maguire affair, the Pinkertons played a decisive role. Having investigated the coal region through numerous undercover operatives, most prominently James McParlan, as well as being part of the uniformed private Coal and Iron Police, the eventual trials and convictions rested almost entirely on the testimony of the former and the arrests of the latter. This has long been the main subject of controversy surrounding the events.
But the Pinkertons, despite their metonymic claim to fame (or infamy), were not a singular force. They have to be assessed in the broader context of private policing, which was widespread in the 19th century United States. The coevolution of public and private policing has been quite
thoroughly researched, with Jonathan Obert arguing that the transformation of social bonds in the mid-19th century ultimately led to the creation of both a professionalized public police force and
the emergence of private services.8 Similarly, David Churchill, Dolores Janiewski and Pieter Leloup
document a broad understanding of this phenomenon in research on the history of policing, under terms such as ‘plural policing’, ‘hybridity’, ‘corporatization’, or similar.9 However, this research
has, to this date, never been applied to the specific context of the Molly Maguire affair.
6 O’Hara 2008, p. 169 7 Cf. Ibid.
8 Cf. Obert 2018
1.3 Theory
The complexity of this topic requires a broad theoretical approach, combining theories from social history, labor history, criminology, and sociology. An introductory theory section would thus be immensely lengthy and, in absence of context, complicate rather than facilitate understanding. Each theoretical aspect will therefore be explained in the context of the respective chapter. This includes the theory of social banditry as developed by Eric Hobsbawm10 and Kevin Kenny’s definition of agrarian retributive justice11 (see chapter 3.1),
the coevolution of private and public policing as established by Jonathan Obert (see chapter 4.1),12 Gary Marx’ and Robert Weiss’ theories on the role of the infiltrator in political
movements and Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones’ conceptualization of the dynamics of American industrial espionage (see chapter 4.3),13 and – as the underlying foundation – an understanding
of class and migration as historical factors, both in general and in the specific context of 19th
century America, as established, among others, by Grace Palladino, Kevin Kenny, Mark Bulik, and Kerron Ó Luain (see chapters 3 and 5).14
1.4 Previous research
For the most part, the implications of and differences between existing works of research will also be discussed in the appropriate chapters. However, a brief overview shall be provided here. Little academic research exists on the Molly Maguires. There are six comprehensive monographs from 1930 to 2020,15 and most of the older works will only be referenced
sporadically: Anthony Bimba’s 1932 The Molly Maguires is an attempt at a revision of the Pinkerton narrative, but ultimately more of a polemic and methodologically rather deficient.16 Walter
Coleman’s 1936 The Molly Maguire Riots is by far the most accurate and well researched of the earlier works, and indeed has greatly informed contemporary research.17 Wayne G. Broehl’s 1964 The Molly
10 Cf. Hobsbawm 1981 11 Cf. Kenny 1998, p. 9 12 Cf. Obert 2018
13 Cf. Jeffreys-Jones 1972, G. Marx 1974, Weiss 1986 14 Cf. Palladino 1990, Kenny 1998, Bulik 2015, Ó Luain 2020
15 Strictly speaking, only three of them (Coleman, Broehl, Kenny) are academic works. Bimba and Lewis were both
journalists, so is Bulik, although Bimba had studied history. However, the distinction is not as relevant as it would seem; the works of Bimba and Lewis, just like Broehl’s, did not withstand the passage of time but nonetheless offer some valuable insights. Lewis’ work contains the most factual errors, including glaring internal contradictions (cf. Lewis 1964, p. 41, 119). Bulik’s work, on the other hand, lives up to academic standards, has an academic publisher, and features decisive strengths which will be detailed in chapter 6.1.
16 Cf. Bimba 1932
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Maguires has its qualities in providing a meticulous overview of the source material but is extremely uncritical towards the content of said material.18 Lewis’ Lament for the Molly Maguires provides some
valuable insight on the social history of mining communities, but is even more uncritical in this regard.19 The two relatively recent works, which form the basis for discussion in chapters 3, 5, and
6, are Kevin Kenny’s 1998 Making Sense of the Molly Maguires20 and Mark Bulik’s 2015 The Sons of
Molly Maguire.21 The latter two shall be discussed in detail regarding their strengths and weaknesses
in chapter 6.1. Apart from monographs, very few journal articles exist, only one of which is an actual study (Kevin Kenny’s The Molly Maguires in Popular Culture, 1995)22 and two of which mostly
discuss broader implications of the subject (Harold Aurand and William Gudelunas, The Mythical Qualities of Molly Maguire, 1982,23 and Kevin Kenny, The “Molly Maguires,” the Ancient Order of
Hibernians, and the Bloody Summer of 1875, 2014).24
1.5 Approach, purpose, and research questions
This leaves the question of how to assess the phenomenon. There is only one fact upon which the different interpretations of the Molly Maguires can agree: The Molly Maguire affair is a criminal case. If one, fully or partly, accepts the official interpretation, the men convicted for Molly Maguirism were murderers. If one casts doubt on said narrative, that implies that James McParlan of the Pinkerton agency is to some degree guilty of said murders, and, of course, perjury. Therefore, in dealing with an unsolved historical criminal case, what could be a more appropriate method than the approach of criminological history, defined by David Churchill as “the work of history informed by criminological concepts, theories or methods”?25 This results in a complex
methodological framework, which will be discussed in detail in chapter 2.
The novel approach of this thesis – other than its methods – lies in the combined analysis of the two main actors in the Molly Maguire affair. Whereas previous historians have devoted themselves to either the Molly Maguires, their social and cultural background, and their activities, or the history of private policing in labor conflicts, no study so far has fully appreciated the intertwined relationship of these two actors in this specific context. Existing research rarely touches upon the motives of the agency in investigating the Molly Maguires, nor the role of private policing
18 Cf. Broehl 1964 19 Cf. Lewis 1964 20 Cf. Kenny 1998 21 Cf. Bulik 2015 22 Cf. Kenny 1995
23 Cf. Aurand & Gudelunas 1982 24 Cf. Kenny 2014
in labor conflict as a whole. Drawing on Gary Marx’ seminal study on the active role of agents provocateurs in social movements, which contends that “when illegal protest actions occur there is obviously an interaction between the agent and other activists involved”26 this thesis will do just
that: It will attempt to investigate how the two actors are connected, and which role private policing played in the violence of the anthracite coalfields. The focus will be on the Molly Maguires – simply because there is ample research on the Pinkertons – but the history and role of policing will always be considered.
In developing a combined understanding of the Molly Maguires and the Pinkertons, this paper will attempt to demystify both. Rather than seeing the former as misunderstood labor heroes or bloodthirsty villains, or reducing the latter to the armed extension of a large-scale industrial conspiracy, it will propose an interpretation that understands them as (albeit extreme) personifications of a specific historical constellation of labor conflict and policing tactics. Instead of, in the words of Karl Marx, “mak[ing] the individual responsible for relations whose creature he socially remains, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them”27, even a
controversial figure like McParlan will be portrayed as a mere representative of this context. After a general overview of the history of the Molly Maguires, private policing in general, and the Pinkertons in particular, two main endeavors will be pursued. First of all, McParlan’s credibility as a witness, which, after all, is the basis for the official narrative, will be assessed. Said credibility has often been called into question, but no historical research so far has undertaken the attempt of a systematic evaluation. Second, it will be discussed how plausible the “agent provocateur” theory is, and what evidence can be found to either support or refute it. Given the complexity of the subject, a variety of contexts will be taken into consideration and a set of different methods will be applied. The contexts of Irish agrarian secret societies as well as private policing will be outlined, as well as the fusion of private and public policing in the 19th century United States.
This will be followed by a source- as well as literature-based approach to the events in the anthracite coalfields of Pennsylvania, upon which a revision of the literature based on the source material will be conducted. This revision will use methods of criminological history, supplemented by Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to evaluate the plausibility of the various testimonies on the events.
The main research question of this paper is: how did the use of private policing impact the Molly Maguire affair? In order to answer this question, the following subquestions will be addressed:
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1. Who were the Molly Maguires, and how did they relate to agrarian secret societies in Ireland? Why was this phenomenon transferred to an industrial context in America? 2. Did the Pinkerton Agency use agent provocateur tactics in the Molly Maguire investigation?
If so, which aspects of Molly Maguirism were transformed or created by this influence? 3. How accurate are the representations of the Molly Maguires created by the Pinkertons? Is
there evidence for deliberate falsification? If so, how did this affect the outcome of the affair?
2. Methods
It is not without a certain irony that this paper will use criminological methods to investigate the circumstances and consequences of what can be described as a massive overreach of policing. Yet, upon a closer look, the methodological arsenals of a detective and a historian were never too far apart. Just like the former, historians often deal with conflicting witness statements and need to make a judgment regarding which of those might be the most accurate – and which of them might have what particular incentive to lie. Not unlike the work of a detective, a historian’s work will often concern itself with the basic investigative criteria of means, motive, and opportunity. Means in a historical context translates to economic structure (as in means of production), access (or lack thereof) to institutions, education, technology, and the like. A motive could be ideological or material motivations of historical actors, and opportunity an individual’s or group’s position within a field of power or the capacity for historical action that is discussed under the term of agency. Many historians will implicitly use this exact triad, inferring (in varying order) from power relations to ideological dispositions of a group to agency of that group,28 without acknowledging – or realizing
– that they are following a very similar approach to what a criminologist would use.
The primary source material will be treated as potentially conflicting testimonies, the circumstances of events they establish will be reconstructed in as much detail as possible, and then searched for contradictions and inconsistencies. To facilitate this, this thesis will apply thorough source criticism which in its contemporary forms concerns itself increasingly with “the possible disjunction between available evidence on the one hand and past reality on the other”29 and which
seeks to analyze sources comparatively based on spatial, temporal, subjective and formal criteria which are then applied to make a qualified judgment regarding the credibility and truthfulness of
28 Examples of this triad in historical writing include: Stoler 1992, Eads 2006, Karp 2016. Eads even explicitly
references it in the title.
the sources.30 However, in this specific case, the subjective criteria of the sources are already well
established – they are invariably hostile, it is impossible to compare them with neutral or opposing sources, as source criticism would tend to do, because such sources do not exist. Therefore, the source-critical method will be further complemented by an approach borrowed from postcolonial studies, which provide some useful tools for contexts in which all available source material is hostile. The approach, in these cases, is to read the available material against the grain, that is, to access the representations of a marginalized group in the text by reading it in a way it was not meant to be read, in an attempt to reconstruct a more or less reliable picture of the respective group by questioning what is said and inferring to that which is not said. A key example of this approach, which greatly informed the way this method will be used in the context of this study, is Ann Laura Stoler’s In Cold Blood, which analyzes sporadic patterns of anti-colonial violence in 19th century
Sumatra. Stoler’s essay deals with a reasonably similar situation – a pattern of violence at best insufficiently explained by official narratives and a lack of primary sources that diverge from said official narratives.31
From a criminological perspective, when it stands to be determined whether the core factual elements of a case can be proven, and there is no independent evidence to do so, credibility assessment is the only way forward. Usually, four main criteria are cited as potential indicators of a lack of credibility or attempted deception: (a) inconsistency with previous statements, (b) too little confidence in the testimony, (c) testimony not in chronological order, and (d) exaggeration of circumstances. Regarding inconsistency, criminological studies in a laboratory setting32 show a
significant discrepancy in the accuracy of testimonies. One such study finds an overall accuracy of 49% for statements with at least one inconsistency, as opposed to 95% for wholly consistent testimonies.33 Of course, under most circumstances historians would have to consider the dynamics
of memory in this context – memory is never wholly accurate, and is subject to changes over time. This explains, for instance, shifts in the testimonies of eyewitnesses to historical events, and would have to be taken into account when comparing testimonies recorded decades after the affair to fresher ones.34 However, in this regard, we are remarkably lucky when it comes to the testimonies
on the Molly Maguire affair: they all originate within an extremely narrow time frame of just three years, which limits the dynamics of memory as a factor, as considerable involuntary alterations of memory over such a short period are less likely.
30 Cf. Föhr 2018, p. 56 31 Cf. Stoler 1992, p. 151ff.
32 That is, with no incentive on behalf of the participants to deceive, which is an important caveat to the validity of
these numbers.
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Criterium (b) will not be applied in this analysis, as it is rather difficult to judge the confidence behind a testimony only preserved in writing. (c) will likewise be disregarded as it is to be considered the weakest indicator, and has rightfully come under scrutiny both in historical and criminological research.35 The aforementioned dynamics of memory can easily affect chronological order, and this
does not indicate untruthfulness. However, criteria (a) and (d) will be applied to gauge the potential of deception in the testimonies on the case left by McParlan and Pinkerton.
Moreover, this thesis will apply spatial methods to discuss and evaluate alleged patterns of Molly Maguire activity. Through the use of QGIS, a map of incidents and events will be created to discover and analyze potential differences between the two ‘waves’ of Molly Maguire activity. The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has, in recent years, gained popularity within the field. Proponents of the method cite its capability as a research tool for historians, arguing that the format allows the researcher – as well as the reader – to interact with the material in a way that allows making patterns and relationships visible and creates, as Aaron Raymond describes it, „powerful visual statements that communicate information about the past.“36 GIS is applied as a
presentational tool where other visualization methods such as graphs and tables are insufficient; moreover, it is used as an exploration tool to discover varieties and patterns that would otherwise easily be overlooked.37 This method, moreover, is closely linked to the criminological approach.
GIS has long featured as a staple of forensic sciences in a variety of ways; the most interesting one for this context being known as tactical crime analysis. This approach maps crime data, usually over shorter periods (more long-term approaches would be part of strategical analysis) in order to identify hotspots of criminal activity and be able to interpret these activity clusters.38 Chapter 6.3 will do
precisely that for the historical context of Schuylkill County during the years of 1873-1875.
3. Irish Ways and Irish Laws
The Molly Maguire phenomenon did not originate in the coalfields of rural Pennsylvania. Its roots, political and cultural, can be traced back to pre-famine Ireland. It is one of the many peculiarities surrounding the Molly Maguires that the origins of the phenomenon are reasonably well understood, while its more recent iterations remain a mystery. Usually, history tends to work the opposite way – once a certain group has risen to notoriety, power, and influence, or even just one
35 Historical research demonstrates that the dynamics of memory will often lead to alterations of the timeline that are
neither intentional nor an indicator of untruthfulness. From the criminological perspective, the criterium of
chronological order has been scrutinized particularly with regards to the influence of trauma on victim testimony, cf. Fisher, Vrij & Leins 2013, p. 177
36Raymond 2011, p. 585 37 Cf. Boonstra 2009, p. 89ff.
of the above, it becomes increasingly well documented and understood, while its origins often remain in the dark. This is particularly the case if the more recent iterations take place in a context with a significantly higher literacy rate – yet historians have a clearer understanding of the agrarian predecessors of the Molly Maguires in Ireland during the first half of the 19th century than of the
events in Pennsylvania half a century later. It is also largely unclear how the phenomenon came to be transplanted to the United States in the first place, with Kenny noting that a direct import is unlikely, as there is no evidence that any of the men implicated were involved in agrarian conflict in Ireland, and few originated from the Molly Maguire strongholds of Cavan, Monaghan and Leitrim.39
Nevertheless, the Irish origins of the Molly Maguires provide important context for the understanding of their American successors. In this chapter, the Irish roots of the phenomenon will thus be detailed, including a short overview of the various secret societies that predated the Molly Maguires, the socio-economic conditions which precipitated the rise of said societies (3.1), as well as the cultural practices and symbols that would ultimately become the foundation of Molly Maguire (3.2), before turning the focus to the actual Molly Maguires in Ireland (3.3) and discussing the roots of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (3.4).
3.1 Steelboys, Ribbonmen and Whiteboys: social banditry and retributive justice
There is little doubt regarding the fact that 18th and 19th century Ireland was indeed home to a
plethora of militant secret societies, most of which, especially the earlier ones, were local and short-lived, but some of which achieved a great deal of notoriety and organizational structure that spanned across multiple counties, if not much of the island. The material conditions of rural Ireland in this period were a powder keg, with an impoverished peasantry dependent on conacry (the practice of seasonally renting small plots of land to grow potatoes) and its collectivist agrarian tradition colliding with the onset of modern capitalist economy and international trade. As cattle farming became increasingly profitable due to the possibility of selling Irish beef and butter in England, there was a strong incentive for landlords to evict conacre tenants and convert the land for pasture. The system of absentee landlords relying on a plethora of agents and bailiffs to manage their estates further impoverished the landless peasants, whose labor not only was exploited by the landlords directly but also by the countless middlemen. Agents and bailiffs, however, often provided an easy and accessible target to vent grievances.40
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It was in these conditions that the agrarian secret societies of Ireland originated. The deficiencies of pre-famine economy, particularly in rural areas, were profound and systematic, and thus was the response.41 Driven at times by the direst economic necessity, as the loss of a conacre
plot could prove fatal, and guided by a cultural understanding of community deeply rooted in a still largely intact Celtic tradition, Irish secret societies constituted a form of class struggle that was at the same time both pre-modern and modern. They were pre-modern insofar as their practices were rooted in ancient, even pagan, folk belief and tradition, and insofar as they favored and defended a mode of production that was threatened by the advent of modernity. They were modern insofar as they increasingly articulated the aforementioned claims in the language and strategy of modern nationalist thought.42
Therefore, the secret societies of rural Ireland, the Molly Maguires as well as their predecessors, are best understood as a form of agrarian retributive justice. Kenny defines this phenomenon as “a form of collective violence designed to redress violations against a particular understanding of what was socially right and wrong.”43 Contemporary or slightly later accounts,
describing the secret societies as “midnight courts”, “Vehmgericht”44 or similar, illustrate that this
was widely perceived to be their main purpose.45 They can thus not be understood as simple outlaws
– from their perspective, as well as that of a great part of their peers, their purpose was to uphold the law, not to break it. This is an important characteristic of what Hobsbawm describes as social banditry, which concerns itself with “the defence or restoration of the traditional order of things ‘as it should be’ (which in traditional societies means as it is believed to have been in some real or mythical past).”46
Conflating this broad phenomenon of retributive justice under the umbrella of “secret societies”, as has often been done, bears the risk of mystifying them in the same vein as contemporary observers tended to do. Instead, it should be noted that these groups, while sharing similar grievances, were often vastly different from each other in base and strategic approach. Not every organization lumped together under this term was physically violent, not every one was all that secretive, and not every one was sectarian. However, Ryan identifies certain characteristics that
41 Cf. Ryan 2000, p. 120 42 Cf. Garvin 1892, p. 136 43 Cf. Kenny 1998, p. 9
44 Medieval tribunals of the Holy Roman Empire, usually concerned with capital crimes. The term was later used to
describe a somewhat despotic court passing swift death sentences.
45 Cf. Garvin 1982, p. 136
46 Hobsbawm 1981, p. 26. Social bandits, according to Hobsbawm, thrive in rural or mountainous areas, where law
most of them reliably shared: the use of intimidation tactics against their adversaries, often in the form of threatening notices, the acquisition of arms through burglary or similar means, and the wearing of an emblem of recognition. Through “the […] administration of illegal oaths and the use of special gestures, signs, and documents known as 'catechism’.”,47 they would create a quite
ritualistic structure.
Despite later efforts to portray these societies as a purely sectarian Catholic affair, the phenomenon was not at all confined to the Catholic community. Among the first recorded instances of large, cross-county organizational phenomena concerned with matters of agrarian justice are the Hearts of Oak (or Oakboys) and the Hearts of Steel (or Steelboys), two partly overlapping but distinct networks of largely Presbyterian farmers and small artisans originating in Armagh and Antrim respectively and quickly spreading throughout most of Ulster – excluding only Donegal – in the 1760s and early 1770s. The Hearts of Oak deployed a strategy of sabotage and intimidation, destroying toll gates and marching on the houses of the local gentry, but with little recorded physical violence, while the Hearts of Steel took a more immediately militant approach. In the 1772 Battle of Gilford, 2.000 armed Steelboys attacked the residence of magistrate Richard Johnston, an ardent supporter of the gentry, forcing him to flee by swimming across the River Bann.48
This early instance of militant secret societies embodies many of the complexities historical research faces in this context. Although distinct in time, place, and strategy, the Hearts of Oak and the Hearts of Steel quickly became conflated and were coupled together in historical research for a long time.49 This may be because only the latter could reasonably be classified as a “secret” society,
with the former mobilizing and rallying in broad daylight, possibly leading to the belief that they were two sides of the same coin. But if this is the case, it becomes apparent why it is such a difficult task to separate fact from fiction and speculation when discussing Irish secret societies.
Around the same time, secret societies became a common phenomenon among the Catholic peasantry as well. The largest, and most well-known, of these secret societies included the Defenders, the Ribbonmen, and the Whiteboys. Bulik notes that, as a general tendency, the Defenders and their successors, the Ribbonmen, were mostly based in the north and center of Ireland, tended to be involved in nationalist politics as much as in tenant and land rights, and leaned towards religious sectarianism, while the Whiteboys were active in the rural regions of the south and were often relatively apolitical on issues beyond the question of tenant rights. These
47 Cf. Ryan 2000, p. 120
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characteristics could merge, however, with some Ribbon groups inheriting the Protestant leadership of 1798, and some Whiteboy groups being deeply sectarian.50
The first Whiteboy rebellions were recorded in the southern parts of Ireland, throughout Leinster and Munster, in the first half of the 1760s. Much like the Oakboys and Steelboys, the Whiteboys defined many of the themes commonly associated with Irish secret societies: quasi-military organization, uniform symbols (white bands worn around the hats and white frocks over their clothes)51, oaths of secrecy, and ritualized forms of intimidation and retribution. They first
achieved notoriety by leveling ditches and fences that had been erected to enclose what had formerly been common lands.52 However, their appeal was mostly limited to the landless, and they
attracted few to no supporters among artisans and wealthier peasants. This may at first have greatly limited their capacity for inter-county organization as well: during the Whiteboy unrests in Kilkenny and Tipperary in 1763, the erstwhile Whiteboy hotspots of Waterford, Cork, and Limerick made no efforts to support them, suggesting poor or nonexistent communication between them.53
Moreover, the Whiteboys went by a wide array of local names (Rockites, Blackites, or ‘the fairies’), with the label of ‘Whiteboy’ applied by outside observers, further suggesting a general lack of organizational coherence.54
Whiteboyism persisted for several decades, as a localized, sporadic pattern of violence, but would not achieve inter-county notoriety outside of a brief, but intense period of rebellion from 1769-76. Beyond overt militancy, their main activity consisted of various ways of enforcing the social contract of rural Ireland: there are records of them getting involved in affairs of arranging marriages, sometimes against the will of wealthy farmers, punishing wife-beaters, and enforcing mutual aid in times of need. In this, the Whiteboys can be placed firmly in a context of agrarian retributive justice. They could, and did, resort to large-scale violence if they saw a threat to this social contract, but there is little evidence that they concerned themselves with matters beyond it.55
As sectarian tensions increased in the 19th century, so the secret societies became increasingly
sectarian and increasingly well-organized on either side of the divide. The Ribbonmen embodied this phenomenon, having originated as an offspring of the Defenders – an organization, as the name suggests, founded to defend Ulster’s Catholic community against the predecessors of the Orange Order. Just like the Defenders, Ribbonism was organized in lodges, and evidence suggests that there was some rudimentary leadership in Dublin and Belfast and some level of formal
structure in terms of delegate systems and formal inter-county structures. Ribbonism inherited from its predecessors certain aspects of a modern, Republican ideology blended with Catholic imagery – but in some areas, it also retained parts of the Protestant leadership of 1798 – and became so hegemonial in some parts of Ulster that in 1813, it would be considered suspicious if a 19-year-old was not a member of the local Ribbon lodge.56
Activities of the Ribbonmen included much of the same activities ascribed to the Whiteboys: threatening letters (‘coffin notices’, warning the target to cease their activities or face the wrath of the society), acts of sabotage, and sporadic physical violence. However, a trend towards a more decidedly modern ideology, and a rising nationalist consciousness manifesting itself among the bread and butter issues of everyday life, can be inferred from a coffin notice allegedly posted by Ribbonmen in County Monaghan in 1851: “you are hereby […] prohibited from evicting tenants, executing decrees, serving process, distraining for rent […] or to assist any tyrant, Landlord, Agent in his insatiable desire for depopulation.”57 In this phrasing, desire for depopulation, it becomes
apparent that the Famine was understood, at least by Ribbonmen in Monaghan, as a conscious, orchestrated act of driving the Irish off their land, which required an equally conscious, orchestrated mode of resistance. Thwarting the landlords and their agents, in this case, was no longer merely about protecting local lower-class interests, it was apparently seen as a patriotic act in defense of Ireland and the Irish in general.
In the post-famine years, when Ribbonism was on the decline in most of Ireland but persisted in some of the Midland counties (Westmeath, Meath, and Offaly), there also appears to have been a tendency to move away from purely agrarian issues towards wage-labor related grievances. Whelehan argues that, in the post-famine period,
herdsmen, clerks and railway workers employed old tactics for new jobs. The familiar methods of the Ribbonmen, nocturnal intimidation by armed parties, firing at the person, destruction of property, and threatening notices and letters, were employed in attempts to control hiring and firing and regulate labour conditions.58
One example that he provides is most interesting given the context of this paper: the assassination of Thomas Anketell, railway stationmaster in Mullingar (County Westmeath), in 1858. Anketell was described as a tyrannical overseer, numerous grievances against him regarding the firing of porters and servants were well known, and he was accused of denying workers access to a garden and to the use of leftover coal. When he was killed, two laborers were arrested but released due to lack of evidence, and a potential witness was intimidated into leaving the town. This not having been the
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only Ribbonite incident on the railroad, it can be assumed that this mode of agrarian retributive justice easily lent itself to being transferred into the context of industrial wage labor.59 Moreover,
Kerron Ó Luain contends that Ribbonism functioned as a form of primitive trade unionism for artisanal labor in urban areas as early as 1820.60
While some doubts remain, it is reliably demonstrated that secret societies existed in some parts of Ireland (though their extent may be overstated), which goals they pursued, and which tactical and strategical means they applied to achieve said goals. However, it also becomes clear that there were various strains and traditions of secret societies, so the crucial remaining task is to identify how the Molly Maguires related to this complex pattern of distinct traditions. One aspect which may be helpful in this regard, the relationship with Celtic folk belief and traditions, will be detailed in the following subchapter.
3.2 Mummery and mythology
As briefly mentioned in the previous subchapter, an important aspect of the secrecy of these groups was their fusion with various folk beliefs and traditional holidays. Processions and ritualistic cultural practices played an important role in rural Ireland, and passing as a holiday procession would allow secret societies to conceal their presence from the authorities. Some holiday traditions, moreover, involved covering one’s faces, providing an even more ideal environment of anonymity without raising any suspicion. Agrarian secret societies from their earliest days appear to have had a certain connection to folk belief and Celtic mythology, consistent with Hobsbawm’s observations on social banditry and its invocation of a mythical past.61 The Whiteboys, for instance, pledged allegiance to
a mythical female figure, Queen Sieve, from Celtic legend.62 An understanding of the cultural
context and significance of this practice is thus instrumental towards understanding the phenomenon of secret societies.
To this, the practice of mummery was the most instrumental. Mummery was a tradition of British origin transferred to Ulster during the Plantation, where it became infused with Celtic symbolism and folk belief. Bulik describes it as “a form of trick or treat, an ancient play performed by amateur troupes who visited nearby homes during the Christmas season.”63 A group of traveling
actors in straw clothing and blackened faces would visit homes in a given area, and a largely identical
59 Cf. Whelehan 2012, p. 12 60 Cf. Ó Luain 2020, p. 56 61 Cf. Hobsbawm, p. 26
62 Cf. Kenny 1998, p. 22. Alternative spellings ‘Sive’ and ‘Sahbh’ found in some contemporary sources and in
research on the Whiteboys refer to the same figure, ‘Sive/Sieve’ owed to the often inconsistent Anglicization of Celtic names; and ‘Sahbh’ being the Irish spelling.
play, with some local variations, would be shown: two champions fighting each other, one being killed, and raised from the dead with the help of a woman (a man in drag, all actors were male), who would collect payment for a ‘doctor’ from the audience. The payment would then be used by the mummery group to organize a party, inviting all the households they had visited. This practice thus had a function of reinforcing the social contract and reminding the community of the duty to participate in mutual aid – as preserved in modern-day Halloween practices, the mummers would threaten retribution if turned away, and the threat was not always empty.64
Both the motif of dead men rising to fight again as well as that of cross-dressing feature prominently in Irish mythology, particularly in Ulster. In one of the tales surrounding Cuchulainn, probably the most widely known Irish legend today, a decapitated man picks up his head and walks away, only to return to fight the next day. In the myth of Conn of a Hundred Battles, the main antagonist devises a plot to kill the hero by sending assassins disguised as women during the festival of Samhain. There is ample evidence, through folk ballads and stories of various kinds, that these legends were referenced in connection with secret society assassinations – the slain agent or landlord would rise again to fight his assassin.65
Agrarian secret societies were thus closely linked to mythology, rural popular culture, and folk belief. However, this connection is not equally pronounced in all forms of these groups. Societies of the Whiteboy variety were a lot more closely linked to these festivities and the corresponding peasant calendar than their Ribbon counterparts. There was a clear seasonal pattern to Whiteboy attacks, peaking in winter and coming to a halt over the summer, suggesting a very close connection with the peasant calendar.66
3.3 The children of Molly Maguire
During the peak of Daniel O’Connell’s parliamentary successes, between the years of 1823–1847, secret society activity saw a downturn and became overshadowed by the legal, parliamentary approach. Yet, it was never truly gone, the appeal of parliamentary efforts being “substantial rather than complete”67 and at the advent of the famine, it would once again emerge in full force. The
Molly Maguires would come to be the latest iteration of this phenomenon. Their members would dress in women’s clothing, with blackened faces, and pledge their allegiance to “Molly Maguire” – a mythical figure described as “a barbaric and picturesque character [who] blackened her face and
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under her petticoat carried a pistol strapped to each of her stout thighs,”68 she was supposedly a
widow who had been evicted from her home, and in retaliation attacked English landlords as well as their agents and bailiffs. Alternatively, she is described as the owner of an illicit tavern where her followers met and planned their attacks.69 A strong connection to mummery and folk belief is
evident here, and the Molly Maguire character herself might either be a figure directly out of a mummers’ play or an evolved form of Queen Sieve of Whiteboy iconography.
The Molly Maguires made their first recorded appearance in Cavan and Leitrim in 1844. The second half of 1844 would see a marked rise in agrarian disturbances – coffin notes, threats, weapon searches, and the like – followed by an abrupt, brief period of silence around the beginning of 1845, at the same time when actual mummery groups would have been active. After the festive season, violence resumed at a more intense level. The first death attributed to the Molly Maguires in Ireland was recorded at Garadice Lake, County Leitrim, on January 29th, 1845. Once again, a certain
connection to folk belief is plausible, with the killing occurring two nights before the Eve of Brigid and the location being very close to the ancient human sacrifice site at Magh Slécht.70
In the following months, the Connacht-Ulster borderlands of Cavan and Leitrim would become a veritable hotbed of Molly Maguire activity. On May 14th, 1845, James Gallagher, a
landlord’s agent in County Cavan, was shot at close range with a blunderbuss, and on June 22nd,
George Bell Booth, a magistrate and Orange Order leader in Drumcarbin (County Cavan) was assassinated on his way home from church. In both cases, the date of the incident coincides closely with important holidays: Gallagher was killed days before Whitsun and Booth a day after Midsummer.71 During the same summer, a manifesto of some sort to the society was published in
Leitrim. The document reduces the agenda of the Molly Maguires strictly to the land question, explicitly disavows both sectarianism and attacks on anyone but a landlord or agent who breaks the social contract, and strongly urges that landlords who adhere to the social contract be respected.72
The Molly Maguires went to such great lengths to copy the practice of mummery to perfection: wearing identical costumes, painting their faces black, appearing at the same time of the year, even the ‘Molly Maguire’ figure itself appears to have been borrowed from mummery, that Bulik suspects there was a certain overlap between actual mummery groups and the Molly Maguires.73 Kenny seconds this interpretation, stating that particularly the cultural motif of
dressing was widespread, and “the violent societies appear to have been an outgrowth of nonviolent ones, representing the transformation of cultural play into social protest.”74
An exploration of the themes the Molly Maguires chose – the allegiance to a mythical woman, the strong connections with folk belief and mummery – suggests an origin story and a structure much closer to the Whiteboy than the Ribbon variety of agrarian unrest. The same can be said for the manifesto, which reduces the agenda of the society strictly to the land question, contains no traces of sectarian language, and is devoid of any notion of modern nationalism – which, as mentioned in chapter 3.1, featured prominently in Ribbon documents of the same period and in the same area. However, their region of origin, as well as some of the primary source material, complicates this. The Ulster-Connacht borderlands, where the Molly Maguires first appeared, were a stronghold of Defenderism and Ribbonism, but then, Ribbonism and Molly Maguirism, as Vaughan demonstrates, appear to have coincided as distinct phenomena.75 One testimony of a
captured Molly Maguire in 1845, however, claims that Molly Maguirism was “the same as the Ribbon business.”76
The most reasonable explanation for this would be that the two societies coexisted and that there may have been a significant amount of overlap between them. The elusive Molly Maguires, being placed by some scholars in either tradition, may have been a synthesis of both. They displayed clear Whiteboy features, which have never been seen this consistently in any Ribbonite organization (including the post-famine ones which would come after the Molly Maguires), such as the call for non-sectarianism, the connections to mummery traditions and the peasant calendar, and the Molly Maguire character herself. At the same time, they emerged in a classical stronghold of Ribbonism and would show some Ribbonite traits which do not fit neatly into traditions of Whiteboy societies, such as their much wider social base77 and accordingly the adaptation (at least of the name) to an
industrial context.
3.4 The Ancient Order of Hibernians
As stated before, it is unclear how and why exactly the figure of Molly Maguire came to be transplanted to America. It is quite apparent that there was a significant amount of organizational continuity and similarities between the Ribbonmen in Ireland and the Ancient Order of Hibernians
74 Cf. Kenny 1998, p. 24 75 Cf. Vaughan 1994, p. 189f. 76 Brady cit. Bulik 2015, p. 84
77 Evident from the manifesto referenced earlier, and some coffin notices which displayed a high level of literacy.
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(AOH). These included organizational practices, such as passwords and symbols, as well as organizational structures and a strong focus on Ulster and adjacent counties, or the diaspora from that area.78 The AOH acknowledges this in its official historical narrative, and Kenny notes that
the AOH in Schuylkill County was founded by men who had been involved in Ribbonism in Ireland.79 At least for the Ribbonmen, disputing a continuity between Irish secret societies and the
organizations of the diaspora would be a futile endeavor – the authority of none other than Michael Davitt, the prominent 19th century Irish republican and land rights activist, calling the AOH “the
trans-Atlantic offspring of the Ribbonism of Ireland”80 is difficult to refute. The American AOH,
moreover, evolved in a context that had certain similarities with the one that had sparked Defenderism and Ribbonism in Ulster. Under increasingly vitriolic (and at times physical) attacks from a hostile, Nativist establishment in the 1840s and 1850s, which will be discussed in more detail in chapter 5.1, the pressure increased to band together and speak with a unified voice. This may have spurred the coalescence of the AOH as a nationwide organization in 1853. And although the AOH seldomly echoed the militancy of its predecessors – the main focus was always mutual aid, not community defense81 – this might explain some of the Ribbonite continuities. But how
exactly this continuity manifested itself is a factor that is rarely elaborated, and merits a brief discussion.
Throughout much of the 19th and the early 20th century, the Ancient Order of Hibernians
epitomized what Cian McMahon calls “global [Irish] nationalism”82, a vast organizational network
of the Irish diaspora developing a new form of nationalist thought as a result of the community’s necessity to develop a dual identity that incorporated both Irishness and loyalty to the new home. With tens of thousands of members and branches in Ireland, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States, the AOH embodied this transnational Irish identity. Few branches of the AOH, however, would ever achieve the notoriety of the one in Schuylkill County. Founded in 1833 as the Pottsville Hibernia Benevolent Association, the local chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians would play a decisive role in the Molly Maguire affair. Merged with a similar group based in New York in 1836, it conducted, for a while, the nationwide operations from Schuylkill County, and it had at least some links with Ribbon societies in Ireland.83
As the various local ‘benevolent societies’ merged into the nationwide structure of the AOH between the 1830s and 1850, some internal contradictions became apparent. For a long time, the
78 Cf. Garvin 1982, p. 153 79 Cf. Kenny 1998, p. 17
understanding of the American AOH was shaped exclusively in terms of race, as part of the broader story of exclusion and inclusion of Irish Americans.84 Only recently, Kerron Ó Luain has
demonstrated that the history of the AOH itself was a contested one, and there were two rival factions within the order: a middle-class segment that strived for a respectable image, often in concert with Protestant elites, and a working-class one which was at times openly militant, both in labor conflicts and in its support for physical force Irish republicanism.85
The bulk of AOH membership was thus made up of the lower classes, while its leaders came from a somewhat higher background. Some of them had lower-middle-class status even in Ireland or were American-born altogether. Open factional fights are recorded as early as 1858, with two New York sections of the order – one working-class, and allied with the powerful Tammany Hall86
network, the other more middle-class and less partisan – quarreled over parade routes. 87 Similarly,
Bulik observes for Schuylkill County that a considerable personnel change occurred in the order throughout the 1850s and 1860s, which at first replaced the old guard focused on respectability with men from working-class backgrounds. This process culminated in the election of Barney Dolan, a miner, as County Delegate in 1867.88
During the 1860s, the national leadership would become essential in Irish recruitment for the Union Army,89 while many of the working class rank and file members were involved in draft
resistance and militant trade unionism.90 As a response to these local patterns of Ribbonite
working-class unrest, the state and federal bodies of the AOH took an opposing stance throughout the following decade, purged renegade divisions, and firmly allied with the Catholic Church in 1878.91 Nevertheless, there is some occasional evidence of the membership using Ribbon-style
intimidation tactics in the workplace throughout the 1880s, and the order supported the often violent tactics of the Land League in 1879–82 through significant financial aid. The AOH would also see more faction fighting over the 1880s and 1890s, including a temporary split that was eventually reabsorbed in 1898, but the reasons behind this are hard to discern. Since the offshoot was mainly confined to the New York area, one might speculate on disputes between
first-84 The only notable exception is Bimba 1932, p. 11f., who anticipated Ó Luain’s results in stating that “the national
organization [of the AOH] was controlled by the Irish bourgeoisie and the Catholic clergy and, therefore, had nothing in common with the real interests of Irish workers. […] In the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania, the situation was different. […] The branches or locals of the [AOH] were dominated by miners themselves, who transformed the […] organization into their principal organ of class struggle.”
85 Cf. Ó Luain 2020, p. 52
86 Political organization in New York City dating back to the late 18th century. It constituted a main source of power
for the Democratic Party, and came to be dominated by Irish Americans from the 1850s onward. After a series of corruption scandals, it lost most of its influence during the New Deal years, and folded in the 1960s.
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generation and second-generation Irish, monetary aspects also may have been an issue, but nothing specific is known about the reasons for the split.92
Ó Luain concludes that while the AOH did inherit and harbor some traits of Ribbonism, including a climate of conspiratorial secrecy and a certain degree of workplace militancy at the rank and file level, the order was influenced by secret societies but largely nonviolent, and its strongest traits that echoed the agrarian predecessors concerned internal affairs: “They had rejected the violent aspect of Ribbonism [but] the habit of jostling for positions – usually carried out during secretive meetings and conventions – was more difficult to cast off.”93
To give a brief overview of this internal structure, the AOH was made up of local lodges – in the context of the coal regions, it often had one even in small settlements.94 At the head of each
lodge was a so-called “bodymaster”, who according to the reports on the society had a near-total internal authority over the local rank and file. The bodymasters along with other elected officials of the local division (secretaries, treasurers, and so forth) would gather on a county level to choose a county delegate to represent them at the state convention, which would in turn elect a state leadership and representatives for the national convention. A connection to a superior structure in Britain and Ireland, titled the “Board of Erin”, is often reported in 19th-century sources,95 but with
regards to Ó Luain’s findings on the order spreading from America to Ireland, not vice versa,96 this
is likely a fabrication. The system certainly fostered a degree of secrecy towards outsiders (and possibly towards ordinary members), but to suggest that it was a large-scale Ribbonite network is utterly unconvincing. Even Wayne G. Broehl, author of the first comprehensive scholarly work on the Molly Maguires, finds that claim to be ludicrous, despite generally being rather uncritical of the Pinkerton narrative.97
4. A surrender of sovereignty
Harold W. Aurand, in researching the history of mine workers in the anthracite coal region, concludes that “[t]he Molly Maguire investigation and trials marked one of the most astounding surrenders of sovereignty in American history. A private corporation initiated the investigation through a private detective agency, a private police force arrested the supposed offenders, and coal company attorneys prosecuted – the state provided only the courtroom and hangman.”98
92 Cf. Ó Luain 2020, p. 75f. 93 Ibid., p. 79
94 For a detailed membership list of the AOH in the Pennsylvania coal region, see Appendix A. 95 Cf. West 1876, p. 10
This ‘surrender of sovereignty’ is hardly exclusive to the Molly Maguire case, however. In this chapter, its history up to the point of the events will therefore be described, including the development of private policing in general (4.1), an account of the history and practices of the Pinkerton agency (4.2), and an analysis of agent provocateur tactics and the motives of private agencies to use them (4.3).
4.1 Private policing
The phrase of the ‘surrender of sovereignty’ may be accurate from our present perspective according to which such agendas should be an exclusively public matter, but is a misnomer insofar as it suggests enmity and controversy between the private and public law enforcement systems of the past. Rather, public and private policing coevolved. This realization has been the subject of extensive debates in recent scholarship on the history of policing, which has moved away from a monolithic conception of “the police” towards broader concepts of policing and security, sometimes framed as ‘fragmentation’, ‘plural policing’, ‘hybridity’, ‘corporatization’ or similar terms.99
In the early 19th century, little professionalization existed – sheriffs and constables were local
authority figures rather than trained law enforcement professionals and depended on being able to mobilize and deputize the general public to carry out arrests. The civic Republican ideals of Jeffersonian America interpreted society as “a public community of shared interest”100 in which
law enforcement was ultimately a civic duty, not necessarily a duty of the state. The underlying ideal was that owners of property, in their mutual interest, would band together to uphold the law and thus avoid the tyranny associated with state-sanctioned violence.101
Accordingly, public policing was “underdeveloped in the West, fragmented in the cities, and primarily centered on maintaining a visible patrol presence rather than crime-fighting.”102 Even
large cities maintained only a small number of law enforcement officials, delegating most agendas to localized personal networks, neighborhood watches, and deputy constables. In practice, as in cities like Chicago, these systems were often heavily segmented, allowing upper-class districts to police themselves and only pay for their own infrastructure. Moreover, settlement patterns often followed ethnic lines, especially among non-English speaking immigrants, and well-connected neighborhood leaders among a given ethnicity would ensure local control.103
99 Cf. D. Churchill et al. 2020, p. 2 100 Obert 2018, p. 829
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This system worked reasonably well in a frontier setting, or even in a pre-industrialized, artisanal town with strong social bonds. However, by the early 1850s, with the rapid urbanization and the expansion of the railroad, the system of delegation faced a crisis, resulting in a perceived security threat exacerbated by sensationalist media coverage. The growth of anonymity and mobility were particularly erosive. In areas with a high level of anonymity and frequent turnover, there was either no identifiable community leadership that could be tasked with maintaining order or – if it existed – it could not be trusted to maintain control over those inhabitants with whom it shared no social bonds.104
Erosion of social bonds, however, was not the only problem. The formation of new bonds, particularly along class lines, provided another challenge. From the outset, the most striking issue that paralyzed the old system has been linked to the question of labor disturbances, as Hogg has noted as early as 1944:
What was a sheriff to do when faced not by a relatively small number of criminals whom everybody recognized for what they were but by hundreds and sometimes thousands of striking workers who were ordinarily peaceful, law-abiding citizens of a community? Could he call upon other citizens to drop their usual pursuits of life, take down their weapons, furnish their own food, and march against men who might be their own neighbors, merely to secure for some mill owner the right to operate his mill as he saw fit? […] Especially was this true when the striking employee evinced a propensity to meet force with force, gun with gun, and a cracked skull with a cracked skull. The sheriff and the country confronted a new problem. Clearly if the ordinary facilities of the law-enforcing agencies were not adequate to provide the protection which he felt necessary to the operation of his enterprise, then the employer must secure that protection for himself.105
The establishment of public police forces, moreover, was accompanied by problems and political disputes. In a period rife with Nativist agitation and marked by an increasingly contentious atmosphere over the issue of slavery, politicians of all ideological backgrounds would fight over the control of public police forces to further their agenda. This made municipal public policing highly volatile and unstable, and increased demand for private policing among those who were able to afford it.106 Jonathan Obert has argued that it was the combination of this crisis and the
continued reliance of the elites on the old systems of deputization alongside the new that transformed and hybridized both public and private governance, and “created a class of specialists who […] moved easily between public and private policing roles.”107
Private policing was always a controversial issue, with the Illinois legislature considering a ban in 1857, and many were convinced that private agencies exaggerated or even deliberately
exacerbated threats to secure employment.108 By the late 1860s, however, a dual system had become
the norm in the US. Private guards, such as the Reading Coal and Iron Police, and detectives from agencies like Pinkerton existed alongside, and cooperated with, an increasingly professionalized public police force.109 In fact, several studies contend that the Pinkerton system preceded and
informed all federal policing systems in the United States, particularly the FBI, which has frequently been accused of entrapment and agent provocateur use.110
No other state embodied this public-private system quite like Pennsylvania, where, in the coal regions, the army and state militia were used for policing only to be replaced by private forces, as will be further detailed in chapters 5.2 and 5.3. Moreover, no private force ever achieved the notoriety or size of the state’s Coal and Iron Police forces, of which each major operator had one at their disposal. Private policing in the employment of railroads was legalized and formalized in 1865 by the Pennsylvania legislature, with the governor being able to grant police powers to any person registered by the railroad. In 1866, this system was extended to all coal and foundry businesses. No criteria for registration were set and no background checks conducted. Officially, they were supposed to only guard company property, but due to their state charter, they had just as much power in public spaces.111 While the governor theoretically had the power to revoke
licenses, there is no evidence that this ever occurred in practice, giving private police forces nearly unlimited and uncontrolled agency. As for the specifics of Schuylkill County, the trend of coevolution is visible as well, with a modern public police force being first introduced in 1867, two years after the formation of the Coal and Iron Police. This system created the office of a county police marshal to be appointed by the governor and overseeing a force of up to 100 men. While the public system had some effect, companies still relied increasingly on the private system and expanded it after the public system proved to be increasingly effective.112 This tendency illustrates
that, despite security concerns being the official reason for the creation of private forces, coal and iron companies in particular were likely more interested in deliberate, totalitarian abuse of police powers than in merely securing their property, which a functional public system could have achieved just as well.
In the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania, the private forces would coordinate and even merge. In the person of Robert Linden, who was both a captain of the Reading Coal and Iron Police and the head of a secret “flying squadron” comprised of an equal number of Coal and Iron
