Pinkerton Agency
The detective agency that outside money sends into the camp.
In Deadwood the Pinkerton agency is an outside force that arrives with the interests of people beyond the camp. Brom Garret threatens Al Swearengen with Pinkerton detectives when the gold claim Swearengen brokered for him looks worthless. In season two Alma Garret's tutor, Miss Isringhausen, turns out to be a Pinkerton agent hired by Brom Garret's family to frame Alma for having her husband murdered. In season three George Hearst brings a large force of Pinkertons into the camp and encourages them to stir up trouble.
Quick Facts
- Appears
- Seasons 2-3
Lore & Background
Swearengen sees through Isringhausen's plan and identifies her as a Pinkerton, an agency he despises; he reasons that letting large outside interests into the camp would hurt his own position, so he and Bullock set out to double-cross her by getting her to document her scheme rather than exposing it. Silas Adams, who has a brief romance with Isringhausen, is caught in the middle. When Hearst brings in his Pinkertons, Wyatt and Morgan Earp, hired by Cy Tolliver as gunmen, are fired.
Reader's Guide
Treat the Pinkertons as pressure from outside the camp rather than a resident faction: they appear whenever someone with money, from the Garret family to Hearst, wants leverage in Deadwood.
More in Factions & Power Structures
Elsewhere in Deadwood
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