Labor Spies and Pinkertons Reference library
Mark Noon
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
...Spies and Pinkertons Among the many tools at employers’ disposal to monitor their workers is the labor spy. Because of the secretive nature of industrial espionage, the degree to which labor spies have been used by companies, as well as their effectiveness, is open to question. Still, few subjects have drawn more intense scorn from organized labor and its sympathizers than the labor spy. The origins of industrial spying in the United States have often been traced to the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, a name synonymous with labor spying in the...
Jean Carol Trepp McKelvey
McKelvey, Jean Carol Trepp (1908–98) Reference library
The Biographical Dictionary of American Economists
...and taught seminars for practitioners until her death. Bibliography Dock Labor Disputes in Great Britain: A study in the Persistence of Labor Unrest (1953). The Duty of Fair Representation (1977). Cleared for Takeoff: Airline Labor Relations Since Deregulation (1988). Lois Spier...
industrial espionage Quick reference
A Dictionary of Economics (5 ed.)
...of another. Such information may include formulae, designs, business plans, or information about personnel. The methods of industrial espionage include theft of documents, phone tapping, and computer hacking, with or without help from corrupt employees of the firm being spied...
Espionage, Economic and Industrial Reference library
Macdonald Stuart
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History
...the spy catcher. Espionage in industry is a growing menace to the prosperity of our country. Never discuss secret work in public places. Keep our secrets secret. (British Cold War poster) When these constraints are recommended even for Silicon Valley, where innovation and competitiveness have long been acknowledged to be dependent on personal information networks, the irony is complete. There is no way to know who is listening…. One experienced listener remarked about The Lion and The Compass , a popular Silicon Valley bar: “If you really want to spy,...
Milles, Thomas (1550–1627) Reference library
The Biographical Dictionary of British Economists
...Sandwich early in 1627 . He was educated at Ashford and joined government service around 1570 , and became a minor but important figure in the administration of Elizabethan England. He served on a number of diplomatic missions to France and Scotland, and was also employed as a spy in the pay of Walsingham. In 1579 he was made bailiff of Sandwich, and in 1585 became customer (chief customs officer) for Sandwich. This latter position was ostensibly a reward for services rendered, but in fact was a continuation of his intelligence-gathering work as he was...
Eden, William (1744–1814) Reference library
The Biographical Dictionary of British Economists
...Lord North’s ministry. He gave up his legal career for political life, specializing in economic and commercial matters. In 1776 he accepted a post at the Board of Trade and Plantations. Eden was in charge of espionage in the American colonies after 1776 . He established a huge spy network in Europe to report on Americans who sought aid for the fight against Britain. After France’s intervention in the war in 1778 , Eden went to America in an attempt to negotiate a peace settlement, returning without success in 1779 . He became chief secretary of Ireland in...
Holland, John (1722) Reference library
The Biographical Dictionary of British Economists
...using the company’s capital. Holland stopped Short of accusing Paterson of outright fraud, but he maintained that Paterson was mis-using his stockholders’ money and was guilty of deception and dishonesty. Paterson’s friends in turn accused Holland of being an East India Company spy (he had had dealings with the East India Company during his earlier career) and of trying to wreck the Indian and African Company’s trade. The clash is recounted in A Short Discourse on the Present Temper of the Nation with Respect to the Indian and African Company ( 1696 )....
Chapman, Agatha Louisa (1907–63) Reference library
The Biographical Dictionary of American Economists
...in Princeton, and made a very favorable impression on the conference organizer, Richard Stone . Chapman was now at the peak of her career, just as forces were conspiring to end it. Following the defection of Igor Gouzenko in 1945 and the subsequent revelation of widespread spy rings at work in Canada, several former members of the League for Social Reconstruction were found to have been involved, and Chapman was implicated by association. Given the Cold War paranoia of the times, Chapman was suspended from her position at the Bureau. Chapman was...
White, Harry Dexter (1892–1948) Reference library
The Biographical Dictionary of American Economists
...That effort brought him into regular contact with Soviet officials, some of whom were secret intelligence agents who were filing reports to Moscow on their conversations with White. In addition, some of White's friends and colleagues were probably connected to domestic groups spying for the Soviets. By 1945 , the FBI was receiving second-hand reports that White himself might have been involved in this espionage. Although no compelling evidence has ever surfaced to establish that White's contacts with Russians crossed the line between personal diplomacy and...
Tatham, William (1752–1819) Reference library
The Biographical Dictionary of British Economists
... A Memorial on the Civil and Military Government of the Tennessee Country . In 1795 Tatham was sent to Spain as an envoy to discuss a boundary dispute that had arisen with the latter’s colony of Florida, but the Spanish government became suspicious that he was in fact a spy, and he was forced to leave the country. For reasons that remain unclear, instead of going home Tatham went to London, and spent several years engaged in writing on trade and inland navigation. In 1801 he took a post as superintendent of the London docks, continuing to write...
M’farlan, John (1740–88) Reference library
The Biographical Dictionary of British Economists
...than others in the city, imposed unusually strict admission conditions). Noting that it was nonetheless intrinsically difficult to direct relief appropriately in large towns, M’Farlan urged careful assessment of relief applicants, and the appointment of ‘inspectors of the poor’ to spy out delinquents, for whom special penal but reformative workhouses should, he thought, be maintained. M’Farlan may well have authored the anonymous Collection of Pamphlets Concerning the Poor … (London and Edinburgh, 1787 ), conventionally ascribed to Thomas gilbert ....
Meatpacking Industry Reference library
Margaret Walsh
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History
...conditions, seasonal work, and low wages. The broad-based trade union, the Knights of Labor, struggled to organize packinghouse workers in the 1880s. There were some strikes in the 1890s, but manufacturers defeated any resistance by using nonunion labor, troops, and industrial spies. As much work was unskilled, employers easily hired recent immigrants and African Americans as less troublesome employees than unionized workers. Skilled unions represented by the American Federation of Labor made little headway in organizing packinghouse workers. There were few...
Silk Road Reference library
Peter C. Perdue
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History
...the entire Eurasian continent formed the world's largest pacified continental trading zone. Once again, travelers crisscrossed Eurasia; Marco Polo was only one of hundreds of all nationalities. They easily combined the roles of businessman, emissary, explorer, pilgrim, and spy. Thereafter, the trade routes declined in relative if not absolute volume. In the sixteenth century, the Ming dynasty blocked frontier contact by completing the Great Wall, and no more nomads unified the steppe. Gunpowder weaponry and the opening of the New World sea routes did not...
Kindleberger, Charles Poor (1910–2003) Reference library
The Biographical Dictionary of American Economists
...He worked in fact for Harry Dexter White . White's ideas for an international monetary fund were to result in such an institution being created after the Second World War, and White himself becoming its first U.S. Executive Director. But, in 1948 , White was accused of spying for the Soviet Union during the War and, in particular, of having passed secrets to the Soviets at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 . Days later White died of a heart attack. The saga of White was one that clearly moved Kindleberger profoundly; he would refer to White and...
American Indian Economies Reference library
Michael E. Smith, Terence N. D'Altroy, José Luis de Rojas, Robert Patch, and David M. Wishart
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History
...long-distance merchants and markets. Sources indicate that the pochtecas worked at the marketplaces in these major cities and also at their destination towns. These merchants also traded at neutral points with peoples outside the empire. This foreign trade sometimes merged into spying in enemy territories and even into open warfare. We do not know if such trade was carried on regularly, with expeditions meeting at trading sites at an appointed time, or if the long-distance traders maintained permanent trading posts. The character of the traders' convoys is...
exchange-traded fund Quick reference
A Dictionary of Finance and Banking (6 ed.)
...fund ( ETF ) An investment fund that tracks a market index and that is itself traded in the same way as a stock, so that its value fluctuates over the trading day. ETFs have grown in popularity since the first major fund—the SPY or Spider, which tracks the Standard and Poor’s 500—was devised in 1993 . Their advantages to investors include flexibility and low operating...
Haymarket Affair Reference library
Richard Schneirov
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
...to public hysteria, Chicago officials banned public meetings and processions. Eight anarchist leaders stood trial for conspiracy to commit murder. Although the identity of the bomb thrower remained unknown, a court convicted the anarchists of murder. On 11 November 1887 , August Spies, Albert Parsons, George Engel, and Adolph Fischer were hanged; Louis Lingg had earlier committed suicide. The Illinois governor John P. Altgeld commuted the sentences of the other three in 1893 . The novelist William Dean Howells was one of the few prominent figures to protest...
Citizens’ Committees and Alliances Reference library
Tom Mitchell
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
...sphere as a disinterested third party. Through the agency of the citizens’ committee, the business community could assemble resources to oppose organized labor in the public sphere, to fight strikes through court-ordered injunctions, to recruit strikebreakers, guards, and labor spies, and to create and sustain blacklists to be employed against labor activists. J. West Goodwin created the first Citizens’ Alliance, in Sedalia, Missouri, on 19 August 1901; by 1904, Goodwin had helped to establish the organization in twenty-eight cities. Others were formed without...
Railroad Strike (1877) Reference library
David R. Roediger
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
...July, in large part because of state intervention. The enduring impact of the strike wave included a successful campaign for a more effective militia and an impetus toward stronger labor organization by railroad employees and other workers. [ See also Labor Movements ; Labor Spies and Pinkertons ; Railroad Brotherhoods ; Railroads ; and Strikes . ] Bibliography Bruce, Robert V. 1877: Year of Violence . Indianapolis: Bobbs–Merrill, 1959. Foner, Philip S. The Great Labor Uprising of 1877 . New York: Monad Press, 1977. David R. Roediger...
