Franklin B. Gowen

Black Thursday: Mass Execution of Molly Maguires Based on Pinkerton Infiltration

| Importance: 8/10

Ten Irish-American coal miners were hanged in Pennsylvania on “Black Thursday,” the first mass execution in a coordinated corporate-state campaign against labor organizing. In 1873, Reading Railroad President Franklin B. Gowen hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to infiltrate the Molly …

Pinkerton Detective Agency Franklin B. Gowen Philadelphia & Reading Railroad James McParlan Pennsylvania Courts labor-suppression corporate-power judicial-corruption gilded-age institutional-capture
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