The Leo Frank Case A great historical account – Elisabeth – Atlanta GA
I got interested in this case after reading a large write up in the local paper, the Atlanta Journal constitution, which is quoted many times in the book. I like historical books and was really amazed at the semitic overtones in the south during the civil war. As stated by reveiwer C. Ellen, it was written well and put into context with other goings on in that period. Being from Atlanta myself, I could very easily relate to the narative and it held my facination throughout. It told what I beleive to be the complete story and facts as well as being updated for NEW release in 1987 by adding an additional preface. Anyone who is interested in civil war reads, the laws of the time , or who lives in or around Atlanta , will be interested in this book. Over 50 pages of it are dedicated to the bibliography and all facts are well documented. It is a story that is all to reminiscent of famous cases that have arrisen in the past few years. It’s a sad commentary on just how far the attitudes of this nation have come in the past 100 years or so. If interested in further information after reading this book, then I suggest trying to contact the Atlanta Journal Constitution for their brilliant account of the incident in the June 11, 2000 addition of their paper. It also gives a partial list of the lynching mob, held in secretcy until this time. A great book to own for any historical book collection.
An excellent treatment of the subject – Cecelia E Connally – Cleveland, Ohio USA
As a judge, a lawyer and an historian I had heard about the Leo Frank case but did not know the details. Leonard Dinnerstein does an excellent job of relating the story of Leo Frank in a fair and unbiased manner. He also puts the entire affair in a historical context. This would be an excellent read for any student of racism in America and of the New South. It is easy to read and has an excellent bibliography.
Well written, impartial treatment of the Frank Case – Lauren (lauverf@aol.com) – New York
Dinnerstein does a beautiful job in eloquently presenting the facts of the famous Leo Frank case. All angles of the case are examined in a thorough, impartial manner. A must read for anyone familiar with the Frank case, and well worth looking into for anyone who loves a good murder mystery.
The circumstances and attitudes that coincided in the trial of Leo Frank, had very little to do with the accused or the victim. They were both surrogates for a larger battle; Leo Frank was proxy for Northern industrialists and “Little Mary Phagan” stood in for the victimized South who had been taken advantage of by Northern opportunists.
The fact is that the case of Leo Frank acted as a steam valve, in many respects, to the buildup of Southern frustration and anger that had grown since the Civil War, then through Reconstruction and its aftermath. Southern Pride took a near-mortal blow when Lee surrendered to Sherman at Appomattox, humiliating the survivors of hundreds of thousands of dead. Reconstruction brought in Northern carpetbaggers who participated in the governments of the states that they had just defeated. Southern anger accumulated, especially as attempts to overturn it were thwarted until the contested election of 1876, in which Rutherford B. Hayes won on the condition of agreeing to end Reconstruction.
Reconstruction allowed Southern states to exact a measure of revenge on black populations, although resentment toward the North remained unavenged. In an honor-bound society such as the South, it is very difficult to imagine that wrong to one’s family would go without settling the score. Such is the larger metaphor of the South as a whole to the North. Southern society and culture prided itself on being a distinct and cultured entity from the slavish industrialists of the North.
Thus, when a stereotypical Northern carpetbagger, a Jew no less, found himself in connection with the violent death of a Southern belle, vengeance became a powerful a prevailing force. Upon Leo Frank was heaped all of the indignation from Southern loss to the North – the industrialization, forcing young girls to work in factories; the ownership of capital; the imposition of Reconstruction; Lincoln marching into Richmond – all Southern rage at the North was embodied in the trial of Leo Frank. (Ironically, a Northern newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst, fed the flames through his acquisition of the Atlanta Georgian, which led the pack in sensationalizing the trial.)
All of this is to say that the forces which demanded that Leo Frank be the sacrificial lamb for the North’s crimes against the South were too powerful for rational legal procedures. If the governor had reversed the conviction or the commuted the sentence, he would have been denying the mob the satisfaction of revenge. The lynching of Frank did give rise to the Klu Klux Klan, however the immediate reaction of Georgia (and the South) was a demand for justice, even though it was at the end of a rope.
It is telling that Frank did not receive a pardon of his conviction until 1986, and even that was amid controversy in the South. Those eighty years had to pass before rational analysis of a crime could be carried out and a form of justice could be executed, which lends perspective to the heft of the event in the history of the South. Tom Watson’s remark was an astute reflection of the prevailing sentiment of the day and offers a glimpse into larger, unresolved tensions of the day. :
Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
The events surrounding the 1913 murder of the young Atlanta factory worker Mary Phagan and the subsequent lynching of Leo Frank, the transplanted northern Jew who was her employer and accused killer, were so wide ranging and tumultuous that they prompted both the founding of B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation League and the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. The Leo Frank Case was the first comprehensive account of not only Phagan’s murder and Frank’s trial and lynching but also the sensational newspaper coverage, popular hysteria, and legal demagoguery that surrounded these events.
Forty years after the book first appeared, and more than ninety years after the deaths of Phagan and Frank, it remains a gripping account of injustice. In his preface to the revised edition, Leonard Dinnerstein discusses the ongoing cultural impact of the Frank affair. This edition includes for the first time letters written by Jim Conley. The state’s main witness against Frank, Conley would in later years come to be regarded by many as the actual killer of Mary Phagan. The letters shed light on his thought processes, interests, and preoccupations.
Dinnerstein’s analysis should interest students of southern history, anti-Semitism, civil liberties and social change.
–American Quarterly
The Leo Frank Case
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