Long before Pepper Anderson, Maddie Hayes, Dana Scully, and Olivia Benson solved fictional crimes, there were real women opening doors in the crime-fighting arena as detectives. On the one hand, it was unseemly work for a lady, as were most professional careers before the 20th century. On the other hand, women made great undercover officers and spies because no one paid all that much attention to them. They were few, but they opened the door to generations of detectives to follow.
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Kate Warne talked the Pinkerton Agency into hiring her, and proved her mettle by single-handedly foiling a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln as he traveled to his inauguration. Antonia Moser learned her craft from a master detective, then lived with him as his lover, then competed with him when she opened her own agency. Maud West (shown above) was a master of disguise and was so good at it she showed the newspapers, knowing she’d never be recognized. Read about these women and more, seven in all, who became detectives when such work was considered out of reach of most women. -via Nag on the Lake
Source: neatorama