Kate Warne (1833 – 1868).

Kate Warne is known as the first female detective in us history. I found this fact captivating. To discover her world, I needed to think like her. She convinced Allan Pinkerton, founder of the national Pinkerton Detective Agency, to hire her. The agency was originally based in Chicago. At different points in history, three complexes housed the agency along Kendall blocks i, ii and iii. The first two burned to the ground and the third was demolished. I decided I’d attempt to reconstruct her daily pathways through my own investigative work. This image is a composite of my explorations from the day I photographed. A portion of an office building, circa 1854, creates an historical abstraction of today’s approximate location of the first building. While processing my images, I realized my speculations about the original office location was a block off from Kendall Block I. I added ’40’ to the street sign to relocate it.