The Molly Maguires and the Detectives. (Allan Pinkerton's Detective Stories. Vol. VI. [Volume 6]) [Mollie]

552 pp. Dark green cloth, gilt titles and rules, blind-stamped borders. Engraved frontispiece and plates. A study of the radical group of Irish and Irish-American coal miners in Pennsylvania, by the head of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, whose investigation of the group led to the trial, conviction, and execution of several of its members. To keep the peace in the coal mines, the Pinkerton agency goes to war The Civil War is over, and the Union is rebuilding using the power of coal - black rock dug from deep beneath the Pennsylvania earth by men from all over the globe who are seeking their fortune in America. In the 1870s, the miners are unionizing to fight for better working conditions, but within their ranks lurks a secret society whose aim is not so pure. It calls itself the Mollie Maguires, and its adherents are ready to kill to get what they want. Fearing a bloodbath, the head of one of the coal-mining firms reaches out to Allan Pinkerton, founder of the famous detective agency, and begs him to break up the sinister ring. Pinkerton sends James McParlan undercover among the miners, the first soldier in a three-year battle against the radicals that will change the face of American labor forever.