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And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank
On April 27, 1913, the bludgeoned body of thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan was discovered in the basement of Atlanta’s National Pencil Factory. The girl’s murder would be the catalyst for an epic saga that to this day holds a singular place in America’s collective imagination—a saga that would climax in 1915 with the lynching of Leo Frank, the Cornell-educated Jew who was convicted of the murder. The case has been the subject of novels, plays, movies and even musicals, but only now, with the publication of And the Dead Shall Rise, do we have an account that does full justice to the mesmerizing and previously unknown details of one of the most shameful moments in the nation’s history.
In a narrative reminiscent of a nineteenth-century novel, Steve Oney recounts the emerging revelations of the initial criminal investigation, reconstructs from newspaper dispatches (the original trial transcript mysteriously disappeared long ago) the day-to-day intrigue of the courtroom and illuminates how and why an all-white jury convicted Frank largely on the testimony of a black man. Oney chronicles as well the innumerable avenues that the defense pursued in quest of an appeal, the remarkable and heretofore largely ignored campaign conducted by William Randolph Hearst and New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs to exonerate Frank, the last-minute commutation of Frank’s death sentence and, most indelibly, the flawlessly executed abduction and brutal lynching of Frank two months after his death sentence was commuted.
And the Dead Shall Rise brings to life a Dickensian cast of characters caught up in the Frank case—zealous police investigators intent on protecting their department’s reputation, even more zealous private detectives, cynical yet impressionable factory girls, intrepid reporters (including a young Harold Ross), lawyers blinded by their own interests and cowed by the populace’s furor. And we meet four astonishing individuals: Jim Conley, who was Frank’s confessed “accomplice” and the state’s star witness; William Smith, a determined and idealistic lawyer who brilliantly prepared Conley for the defense’s fierce cross-examination and then, a year later, underwent an extraordinary change of heart; Lucille Frank, the martyred wife of the convicted man; and the great populist leader Tom Watson, who manipulated the volatile and lethal outrage of Georgians against the forces of Northern privilege and capital that were seeking to free Frank.
And the Dead Shall Rise also casts long-awaited fresh light on Frank’s lynching. No participant was ever indicted, and many went on to prominent careers in state and national politics. Here, for the first time, is the full account of the event—including the identities of the influential Georgians who conceived, carried out and covered up the crime. And here as well is the story of the lynching’s aftermath, which saw both the revival of the Ku Klux Klan and the evolution of the Anti-Defamation League.
At once a work of masterful investigative journalism and insightful social history, And the Dead Shall Rise does complete justice to one of history’s most repellent and most fascinating moments.
In a narrative reminiscent of a nineteenth-century novel, Steve Oney recounts the emerging revelations of the initial criminal investigation, reconstructs from newspaper dispatches (the original trial transcript mysteriously disappeared long ago) the day-to-day intrigue of the courtroom and illuminates how and why an all-white jury convicted Frank largely on the testimony of a black man. Oney chronicles as well the innumerable avenues that the defense pursued in quest of an appeal, the remarkable and heretofore largely ignored campaign conducted by William Randolph Hearst and New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs to exonerate Frank, the last-minute commutation of Frank’s death sentence and, most indelibly, the flawlessly executed abduction and brutal lynching of Frank two months after his death sentence was commuted.
And the Dead Shall Rise brings to life a Dickensian cast of characters caught up in the Frank case—zealous police investigators intent on protecting their department’s reputation, even more zealous private detectives, cynical yet impressionable factory girls, intrepid reporters (including a young Harold Ross), lawyers blinded by their own interests and cowed by the populace’s furor. And we meet four astonishing individuals: Jim Conley, who was Frank’s confessed “accomplice” and the state’s star witness; William Smith, a determined and idealistic lawyer who brilliantly prepared Conley for the defense’s fierce cross-examination and then, a year later, underwent an extraordinary change of heart; Lucille Frank, the martyred wife of the convicted man; and the great populist leader Tom Watson, who manipulated the volatile and lethal outrage of Georgians against the forces of Northern privilege and capital that were seeking to free Frank.
And the Dead Shall Rise also casts long-awaited fresh light on Frank’s lynching. No participant was ever indicted, and many went on to prominent careers in state and national politics. Here, for the first time, is the full account of the event—including the identities of the influential Georgians who conceived, carried out and covered up the crime. And here as well is the story of the lynching’s aftermath, which saw both the revival of the Ku Klux Klan and the evolution of the Anti-Defamation League.
At once a work of masterful investigative journalism and insightful social history, And the Dead Shall Rise does complete justice to one of history’s most repellent and most fascinating moments.
752 pages, Hardcover
First published October 7, 2003
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April 15, 2022
Steve Oney's And The Dead Shall Rise provides an exhaustive, engrossing chronicle of the Leo Frank tragedy. In 1913 Frank, a Jewish factory manager in Atlanta, was arrested for raping and murdering his teenage employee Mary Phagan. Sensationalized press coverage emphasized the lurid details of the case, blowing a local murder trial into a national cause celebre that, in turn, flamed the prejudices of local Georgians. Convicted and sentenced to death after a circus-like trial, Frank received a massive outburst of support from the national press and public who viewed him as an “American Dreyfus,” falsely accused of a heinous crime due to his religion. This led to an angry local backlash which resulted in his lynching by a well-organized mob in August 1915. Frank’s murder was sanctioned and condoned by well-placed Georgians: an ex-Governor, Joseph Mackey Brown, organized the jailbreak; E.P. Dobbs, Mayor of Marietta, provided cover for the mob’s activities; circuit Judge Newt Morris personally killed Frank, only to be dubbed a "hero" for preventing the desecration of Frank's body. This baleful event scandalized the nation while giving encouragement to America’s ugliest impulses. Within a few months of Frank’s death, and largely as a result of the outcry it generated, the Second Ku Klux Klan was born in Georgia and soon spread nationwide, serving notice that Jewish Americans were not exempt from racial violence.
All of this could easily be handled in a standard “true crime” book that emphasized the sensational aspects in a zippy, readable narrative. But Oney, a veteran Atlanta journalist, takes care to paint the social context to the murder. He discusses early 20th Century Georgia’s split identity as the modern, commercialized emblem of the New South and the racialized relic of the Confederacy, obsessed with segregation and Southern “honor”; Atlanta witnessed a massive race riot seven years before Mary Phagan’s murder, while nearby Forsyth County had expelled its Black population just the year before (Judge Morris, Frank’s executioner, played a crucial role in that event). In this climate, Atlanta’s Jewish population seemed to thrive, gaining economic success while encouraging resentment among locals for whom they’d never be anything but Jewish. Frank, a hardworking New Yorker who mostly kept to himself, became a convenient locus of hatred: both Jewish and a “Yankee,” he evolved from a mild-mannered manager to the “Jewish Pervert” who lurked in Gentile imaginations despoiling innocent Christians.
It’s a messy, ugly case, and Oney’s careful account allows us to consider all of the cross-cutting tensions and prejudices. The prosecution’s chief witness was Jim Conley, an African-American janitor whom many suspected of being the real murderer. Certainly Conley’s testimony against Frank was riddled with lies, evasions and inconsistencies that rendered him anything but a reliable witness. But then, guilty or not, as a Black man in Jim Crow Georgia suspected of murdering a white girl, Conley can hardly be blamed for not being forthcoming; he had even less chance of a fair trial than Frank, the New York Jew. Certainly Frank’s attorneys hardly honored themselves by using racially heated language against his accusers, Conley included. In a society that defined status by “whiteness,” Frank’s lawyers appealed to racial solidarity against a Negro suspect. Unfortunately, like Jews at many points in history he wasn’t deemed white enough to overcome the hatred of determined anti-Semites.
Oney is unsparing of just about everyone who touched the case. Local newspapers, including the Hearst-run Atlanta Georgian, inflamed the public with exaggerated coverage of the crime's details while others, like the Jeffersonian, blatantly appealed to prejudice while encouraging vigilante justice. Campaigning by liberals, national papers like The New York Times and Jewish civil rights groups encouraged Southerners' instinctive hatred of “outside agitators” meddling in their affairs. And the colorful cast of Georgia lawyers, policemen and detectives who rotate through the narrative allow Oney to craft marvelous cameo portraits of Southern politics in the 1910s. Frank inspires contradictory testimony depicting him as an upstanding citizen and faithful husband, a bad man who groped women and caroused with coworkers, a depraved criminal and latent homosexual; as often happens in such crimes, the case’s heated emotions reduced a human being to a Rorschach test. Oney avoids this, allowing readers to assess the evidence for themselves about Frank’s character, a flawed but undoubtedly innocent man placed by chance at the center of an anti-Semitic hurricane. Sadly, this bad luck and a determined conspiracy of bigots cost Frank his life. A masterwork of historical reportage, with lessons about bigotry, "fake news" and conflicting racial, religious and regional identities that resonate to this day.
All of this could easily be handled in a standard “true crime” book that emphasized the sensational aspects in a zippy, readable narrative. But Oney, a veteran Atlanta journalist, takes care to paint the social context to the murder. He discusses early 20th Century Georgia’s split identity as the modern, commercialized emblem of the New South and the racialized relic of the Confederacy, obsessed with segregation and Southern “honor”; Atlanta witnessed a massive race riot seven years before Mary Phagan’s murder, while nearby Forsyth County had expelled its Black population just the year before (Judge Morris, Frank’s executioner, played a crucial role in that event). In this climate, Atlanta’s Jewish population seemed to thrive, gaining economic success while encouraging resentment among locals for whom they’d never be anything but Jewish. Frank, a hardworking New Yorker who mostly kept to himself, became a convenient locus of hatred: both Jewish and a “Yankee,” he evolved from a mild-mannered manager to the “Jewish Pervert” who lurked in Gentile imaginations despoiling innocent Christians.
It’s a messy, ugly case, and Oney’s careful account allows us to consider all of the cross-cutting tensions and prejudices. The prosecution’s chief witness was Jim Conley, an African-American janitor whom many suspected of being the real murderer. Certainly Conley’s testimony against Frank was riddled with lies, evasions and inconsistencies that rendered him anything but a reliable witness. But then, guilty or not, as a Black man in Jim Crow Georgia suspected of murdering a white girl, Conley can hardly be blamed for not being forthcoming; he had even less chance of a fair trial than Frank, the New York Jew. Certainly Frank’s attorneys hardly honored themselves by using racially heated language against his accusers, Conley included. In a society that defined status by “whiteness,” Frank’s lawyers appealed to racial solidarity against a Negro suspect. Unfortunately, like Jews at many points in history he wasn’t deemed white enough to overcome the hatred of determined anti-Semites.
Oney is unsparing of just about everyone who touched the case. Local newspapers, including the Hearst-run Atlanta Georgian, inflamed the public with exaggerated coverage of the crime's details while others, like the Jeffersonian, blatantly appealed to prejudice while encouraging vigilante justice. Campaigning by liberals, national papers like The New York Times and Jewish civil rights groups encouraged Southerners' instinctive hatred of “outside agitators” meddling in their affairs. And the colorful cast of Georgia lawyers, policemen and detectives who rotate through the narrative allow Oney to craft marvelous cameo portraits of Southern politics in the 1910s. Frank inspires contradictory testimony depicting him as an upstanding citizen and faithful husband, a bad man who groped women and caroused with coworkers, a depraved criminal and latent homosexual; as often happens in such crimes, the case’s heated emotions reduced a human being to a Rorschach test. Oney avoids this, allowing readers to assess the evidence for themselves about Frank’s character, a flawed but undoubtedly innocent man placed by chance at the center of an anti-Semitic hurricane. Sadly, this bad luck and a determined conspiracy of bigots cost Frank his life. A masterwork of historical reportage, with lessons about bigotry, "fake news" and conflicting racial, religious and regional identities that resonate to this day.
November 27, 2011
In 2009, when my boss offered me tickets to see the musical “Parade,” I of course said “yes.” I knew that “Parade” retells the story of Leo Frank, the German-Jewish superintendent of Atlanta’s National Pencil Factory, who was convicted of slaying 13-year-old factory worker, Mary Phagan, in 1913. Later, when Frank’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison, an angry mob sprung him from prison and lynched him. The Frank case gave rise to the Anti-Defamation League. Surely, “Parade” would be an edifying performance.
To say the show moved me is an understatement. I emerged a weeping wreck. But a week later, I began feeling that I had been “had”—taken for an emotional roller coaster ride on a script that played too purposefully to my 21st Century sensibilities. Needing to know the true story, I hunted down its most thorough telling by Steve Oney in And the Dead Shall Rise: The Killing of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank (Pantheon: 2003).
Reading And the Dead Shall Rise proved my hunches right. Frank’s wife, Lucille, did not spearhead his legal appeals or campaign publicly for his exoneration. Frank was not simply the victim of anti-Semites and “bad Yahoos” in a kangaroo court—as much as we 21st Century Yankees would like to believe. The story is far more complex, and if you value complexity and objectivity along with brilliant reportorial skill in a 650-page-turner, this tome is for you.
Where “Parade” plays to audience expectations, Oney’s book surprises. As Oney observes, Frank’s conviction was more the result of a botched defense, the defendant’s yekke* inclinations, and the racism of an all-white jury that, paradoxically, couldn’t imagine the black man as the white girl’s killer because his alibi was so fantastic. No Negro, the thinking went, could invent such an outlandish tale; therefore, it had to be true.
One of the most memorable and profound events in the two-year drama of Frank’s imprisonment is lawyer William Smith’s change of heart. Knowing how the cards were stacked against black suspect, Jim Conley, Smith eagerly came to his defense. After Frank’s conviction, Smith and his wife, a school teacher, dedicated themselves to comparing the murder notes with Conley’s “talk dirty” love letters. After copying the contents of these missives onto index cards which they clothes-pinned to strings running across their kitchen, the couple performed a painstaking analysis of Conley’s language. Not only had Conley written the murder notes—which was a given in the trial—he had composed them without assistance; Conley, most likely, was the killer. Years later, Smith, on his death bed, penned a note stating his belief in Frank’s innocence—it was that important to him.
Although I read And the Dead Shall Rise two years ago after seeing “Parade,” it came to mind again while I was editing doctoral dissertations, all of which bemoaned the state of the news media. “You don’t know from media frenzy and hype,” I thought, “until you study the Leo Frank case.” Three Atlanta newspapers—one owned by Hearst—vied for the most sellable headlines, shamelessly pronouncing guilt and innocence as if a judicial trial were unnecessary. Apparently, the term “alleged” had not made its way into the lexicon of journalists. Which brings me to what I enjoy most about Oney’s book—insights into the past which develop appreciation for and understanding of the present.
Oney spent 17 years researching and writing And the Dead Shall Rise, which won the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award and the National Jewish Book Award for history. Simon & Schuster will be publishing Oney’s second book on the trials and tribulations of National Public Radio (NPR). We have much to look
forward to with its release.
*Wikipedia defines “yekke” as a generally jovial, mildly derogatory term used by Jews in reference to the German Jews’ legendary attention to detail and punctuality.
To say the show moved me is an understatement. I emerged a weeping wreck. But a week later, I began feeling that I had been “had”—taken for an emotional roller coaster ride on a script that played too purposefully to my 21st Century sensibilities. Needing to know the true story, I hunted down its most thorough telling by Steve Oney in And the Dead Shall Rise: The Killing of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank (Pantheon: 2003).
Reading And the Dead Shall Rise proved my hunches right. Frank’s wife, Lucille, did not spearhead his legal appeals or campaign publicly for his exoneration. Frank was not simply the victim of anti-Semites and “bad Yahoos” in a kangaroo court—as much as we 21st Century Yankees would like to believe. The story is far more complex, and if you value complexity and objectivity along with brilliant reportorial skill in a 650-page-turner, this tome is for you.
Where “Parade” plays to audience expectations, Oney’s book surprises. As Oney observes, Frank’s conviction was more the result of a botched defense, the defendant’s yekke* inclinations, and the racism of an all-white jury that, paradoxically, couldn’t imagine the black man as the white girl’s killer because his alibi was so fantastic. No Negro, the thinking went, could invent such an outlandish tale; therefore, it had to be true.
One of the most memorable and profound events in the two-year drama of Frank’s imprisonment is lawyer William Smith’s change of heart. Knowing how the cards were stacked against black suspect, Jim Conley, Smith eagerly came to his defense. After Frank’s conviction, Smith and his wife, a school teacher, dedicated themselves to comparing the murder notes with Conley’s “talk dirty” love letters. After copying the contents of these missives onto index cards which they clothes-pinned to strings running across their kitchen, the couple performed a painstaking analysis of Conley’s language. Not only had Conley written the murder notes—which was a given in the trial—he had composed them without assistance; Conley, most likely, was the killer. Years later, Smith, on his death bed, penned a note stating his belief in Frank’s innocence—it was that important to him.
Although I read And the Dead Shall Rise two years ago after seeing “Parade,” it came to mind again while I was editing doctoral dissertations, all of which bemoaned the state of the news media. “You don’t know from media frenzy and hype,” I thought, “until you study the Leo Frank case.” Three Atlanta newspapers—one owned by Hearst—vied for the most sellable headlines, shamelessly pronouncing guilt and innocence as if a judicial trial were unnecessary. Apparently, the term “alleged” had not made its way into the lexicon of journalists. Which brings me to what I enjoy most about Oney’s book—insights into the past which develop appreciation for and understanding of the present.
Oney spent 17 years researching and writing And the Dead Shall Rise, which won the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award and the National Jewish Book Award for history. Simon & Schuster will be publishing Oney’s second book on the trials and tribulations of National Public Radio (NPR). We have much to look
forward to with its release.
*Wikipedia defines “yekke” as a generally jovial, mildly derogatory term used by Jews in reference to the German Jews’ legendary attention to detail and punctuality.
October 29, 2013
How silly is it that I pick up a book about a lynching, read 400+ pages leading up to the lynching yet secretly hope that somehow he doesn't die... yep, that was me.
I can only give this 3 stars almost because it was too well researched and written. This is a LONG book with lots of information in there. Problem is that much of it probably wasn't necessary for the telling of the tale. I often felt like I was reading someone's footnotes that were written right into the text. But I did read every word and it is a well-told history of what took place and a follow-up afterwards. Quite a moving story and a interesting and important part of American history. Very glad this was written and glad I read it.
I can only give this 3 stars almost because it was too well researched and written. This is a LONG book with lots of information in there. Problem is that much of it probably wasn't necessary for the telling of the tale. I often felt like I was reading someone's footnotes that were written right into the text. But I did read every word and it is a well-told history of what took place and a follow-up afterwards. Quite a moving story and a interesting and important part of American history. Very glad this was written and glad I read it.
January 2, 2016
This is an excellent book, extremely well-written along with being well-researche, about a single, long, avalanche-like disaster bookended by two catastrophes: the dreadful murder of Mary Phagan in the basement of the National Pencil Factory in 1913 and the lynching of Leo Frank in Marietta in 1915.
As Oney says, at this point, we are probably never going to be able to determine whether Leo Frank murdered Mary Phagan or not. I tend to lean toward "not" (and I think Oney leans with me), but there are just enough discrepancies and doubts that I'm not sure. On the other hand, we can be sure that he should never have been convicted of her murder, because there was more than enough evidence for reasonable doubt, and he as sure as sin shouldn't have been lynched for it. The course of the trial, the petty, self-interested politicking of the state prosecutor and the corrupt Atlanta police, the demagoguery of a gentleman named Tom Watson, and the cold-blooded lynching (Frank wasn't just lynched, he was broken out of/kidnapped from the state prison farm in Milledgeville and driven 118 miles to Marietta and then lynched), and the aftermath, which proves with sickening exactitude how the good ol' boy network worked (two members of the grand jury who determined that, no, they had no hope of discovering who lynched Frank had been in the lynching party and EVERYBODY KNEW IT) are just horrifying. And the good faith efforts to figure out the truth of Mary Phagan's murder were a dismal failure. The bad go unpunished and the good go unrewarded.
As I so often say in reviewing true-crime books, I wish that Oney had gone ahead and pulled back for the meta chapter, a careful review of the evidence, what we actually know, what we can responsibly conjecture, and which theories of the crime we can prove to be incorrect. Excluding notes and index, this is a 649 page book, and by the end of it, I could really have used a clear summation of what had happened. But that's a fundamentally minor complaint in a book that is an excellent, careful, impartial-as-possible piece of history. (When someone's viciously, virulently anti-Semitic rhetoric is (a) in large part responsible for the (1) conviction and (2) lynching of a very possibly innocent man, and (b) in large part responsible for the revival of the KKK, and that someone is thrilled by and proud of both these things, it's a little difficult to remain impartial about him, Tom Watson I am looking at you.) It is not a pleasant read, but it is compelling, and I do recommend it if you can bear its subject matter.
As Oney says, at this point, we are probably never going to be able to determine whether Leo Frank murdered Mary Phagan or not. I tend to lean toward "not" (and I think Oney leans with me), but there are just enough discrepancies and doubts that I'm not sure. On the other hand, we can be sure that he should never have been convicted of her murder, because there was more than enough evidence for reasonable doubt, and he as sure as sin shouldn't have been lynched for it. The course of the trial, the petty, self-interested politicking of the state prosecutor and the corrupt Atlanta police, the demagoguery of a gentleman named Tom Watson, and the cold-blooded lynching (Frank wasn't just lynched, he was broken out of/kidnapped from the state prison farm in Milledgeville and driven 118 miles to Marietta and then lynched), and the aftermath, which proves with sickening exactitude how the good ol' boy network worked (two members of the grand jury who determined that, no, they had no hope of discovering who lynched Frank had been in the lynching party and EVERYBODY KNEW IT) are just horrifying. And the good faith efforts to figure out the truth of Mary Phagan's murder were a dismal failure. The bad go unpunished and the good go unrewarded.
As I so often say in reviewing true-crime books, I wish that Oney had gone ahead and pulled back for the meta chapter, a careful review of the evidence, what we actually know, what we can responsibly conjecture, and which theories of the crime we can prove to be incorrect. Excluding notes and index, this is a 649 page book, and by the end of it, I could really have used a clear summation of what had happened. But that's a fundamentally minor complaint in a book that is an excellent, careful, impartial-as-possible piece of history. (When someone's viciously, virulently anti-Semitic rhetoric is (a) in large part responsible for the (1) conviction and (2) lynching of a very possibly innocent man, and (b) in large part responsible for the revival of the KKK, and that someone is thrilled by and proud of both these things, it's a little difficult to remain impartial about him, Tom Watson I am looking at you.) It is not a pleasant read, but it is compelling, and I do recommend it if you can bear its subject matter.
April 15, 2023
I’m a 2nd generation, Marietta, GA native…1 generation off from being considered an “OM” (Old Marietta) crowd…my granddad had briefly told me the Leo Frank story and how he had been lynched right near the Big Chicken (a KFC with a massive tower shaped like a chicken we have in town….I know, I know) but that was all I ever heard of it growing up. I also remember thinking there were hardly any Jews in Georgia…then I went to UGA and realized North Atlanta was home to many Jews, it was just Marietta that seemed to hardly have any.
I’m not even real sure what prompted my investigation into this story other than I was on the ride home back from a beach trip in Florida mindlessly browsing the internet, and found myself reading into the details of the trial. This quickly became a fascination, and then an obsession.
This is very much a story that got swept under the rug but runs deep in Marietta history. I suppose the reason we didn’t talk about it was to not offend or embarrass known descendants of the Lynch mob…but also largely because the embers of this whole thing are still very much alive. When I went back to my granddad to tell him all I had been reading, he ominously told me, “Be very careful who you talk with about Leo Frank in this town.”
This is a dense read to say the least. Oney goes into elaborate detail on just about every character, auxiliary or not. Some won’t love this. I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it had I not been familiar with names and places just by living here all my life. But despite the long-winded writing style, it didn’t manage to lose pace or suspense. For any true crime, murder mystery, or history buff…this is a fascinating story that’s worth your attention. For those of Atlanta, and Marietta more specifically, this is a MUST read!
It’s incredibly sobering to realize how easily we can be influenced by hate, fear, and racism. It’s also deeply haunting to recognize how it can all erupt tragically close to home.
I’m not even real sure what prompted my investigation into this story other than I was on the ride home back from a beach trip in Florida mindlessly browsing the internet, and found myself reading into the details of the trial. This quickly became a fascination, and then an obsession.
This is very much a story that got swept under the rug but runs deep in Marietta history. I suppose the reason we didn’t talk about it was to not offend or embarrass known descendants of the Lynch mob…but also largely because the embers of this whole thing are still very much alive. When I went back to my granddad to tell him all I had been reading, he ominously told me, “Be very careful who you talk with about Leo Frank in this town.”
This is a dense read to say the least. Oney goes into elaborate detail on just about every character, auxiliary or not. Some won’t love this. I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it had I not been familiar with names and places just by living here all my life. But despite the long-winded writing style, it didn’t manage to lose pace or suspense. For any true crime, murder mystery, or history buff…this is a fascinating story that’s worth your attention. For those of Atlanta, and Marietta more specifically, this is a MUST read!
It’s incredibly sobering to realize how easily we can be influenced by hate, fear, and racism. It’s also deeply haunting to recognize how it can all erupt tragically close to home.
December 2, 2023
Child molester meets his fate.
October 5, 2016
I played Lucille Frank in the musical "Parade", and it was the best show I have ever been in and ever will be in. I decided to pick up this book to get more familiar with my character and the struggles she had to go through, and I'm glad I did. I ended up finishing the book right before the final performance. I cried seven times that day, and I think what got me the most is Lucille never gave up hope and continued to fight for the honor of her husbands name. This book brought tears to my eyes, and words can't explain how much this book meant to me. This story stuck with me, and it's amazing how people will just turn the other cheek. This is a must read if you love history and possibly want a good cry.
July 7, 2009
And the Dead Shall Rise by Steve Oney
New York: Pantheon Books
$35.00 – 742 pages
Little Mary Phagan
She went to work one day;
She went to the pencil factory
To get her little pay.
- “The Ballad of Mary Phagan”
by Fiddlin’ John Carson
American history contains an abundance of dramatic court trials that have momentarily seized the attention of the entire nation, converting the public into a captive audience. However, none have done so more effectively than the Leo Frank trial (1913-1915) in Atlanta, Georgia. Before the astonishing conclusion – with the lynching of Frank near Marietta, Georgia - an entire country would have cause to question the integrity of our legal system. Almost a century after Frank’s death, the shameful details of his martyrdom – like a dark stain – still color the lives of a modern generation. (The “sins of the fathers” is an apt phrase here!)
On a Saturday morning, April 26, 1913, Mary Phagan, a thirteen-year-old girl, rode the streetcar from her home on Lindsay Street (Bellwood section) into downtown Atlanta and walked to the National Pencil Country to collect her weekly wage: $1.20. The following day, her battered, mutilated body was found in the basement of the factory. As heartrending as the murder was, it hardly seemed a cause capable of setting Jews and Gentiles against each other, provoking the anger of the national media (newspapers), and impugning the integrity of governors, senators and state/federal court judges. In retrospect, Mary Phagan’s death proved to be a catalyst – the small spark that ignited a host of bitter enmities that slept beneath the surface of Georgia’s social, political and religious facade.
Leo Frank, a twenty-nine-year-old Jew (and the product of a cultured and privileged background), supervised 170 workers (mostly teenage girls) at the National Pencil Factory. Within two days, he became a suspect, largely because the Atlanta police found him “nervous” and evasive at the murder site and during Mary’s autopsy. Despite the fact that early evidence implicated Jim Conley, an alcoholic janitor/handyman who was known to have been in the factory, Conley eventually confessed to being “an accomplice.” Specifically, he claimed that he helped Frank dispose of Mary’s body after Frank had sexually violated the child and strangled her.
The subsequent murder trial pitted two of Atlanta’s most gifted (and ambitious) attorneys against each other: Luther Rosser (defense) and Hugh Dorsey (solicitor general of Fulton County). As the weeks turned into months, the conflict between Rosser and Dorsey acquired a bitter enmity. In addition, both sides acquired help: associates and assistants, including such notables as the famous detective, William Burns and a gifted attorney named William Smith who became council for Jim Conley. However, after Frank’s conviction, Smith became convinced that Conley was solely responsible for Mary Phagan’s death. Consequently, Smith would spend the remainder of his life working for Frank’s release.
However, if any singular personality is responsible for the development of an explosive atmosphere that finally drove these warring factions into an orgy of anti-Semitism and vigilante justice, that person is Tom Watson. A charismatic orator with a gift for inciting violence, Watson was a failed politician (candidate for Vice-president with William Jennings Bryan), and editor of a racist newspaper, the Jeffersonian. Preying on the paranoia inherit in Georgia regarding the threat of abuse from “outsiders,”
Watson told his readers that “rich Jews from New York” were attempting to save the guilty Frank by bribes and political influence.
Although a growing number of people were questioning the guilty verdict (the New York Times, William Randolph Hearst, Henry Ford, etc.), the majority of the inhabitants of Georgia believed that Frank was not only a murderer, but also a “sexual pervert” – a conclusion that had been endorsed by both Hugh Dorsey and Tom Watson. In the ensuing legal battles, each appeal was rejected, including pleas before both the state and federal Supreme Courts.
With each failed appeal, outrage in rural Georgia grew – fanned by Tom Watson’s daily rants that blatantly recommended, “If they won’t hang the pervert, let us do it for them.” Watson frequently bragged of his connection with the Klan (re-named “The Knights of Mary Phagan”) and now openly requested their assistance.
Without a doubt, the most remarkable person in this tragedy is Governor John Slaton, who after read the court record and visiting the murder site, concluded that Leo Frank was innocent. He immediately commuted Frank’s sentence thereby saving him from execution. It was a decision that ruined his political career and forced him to leave the state of Georgia. However, Slaton’s decision also launched a 25-member execution squad that became known as the “lynching brethren” who drove from Marietta to Milledgeville prison where they dragged Frank from his cell and transferred him back to a wooded site two miles from Marietta called Frey’s Gin. Here, he was lynched.
Although the identity of the “lynching brethren” was well known in Marietta in the years following the lynching, no member was ever charged. (The author of And The Dead Shall Rise names them all.) In fact, as time passed, members of the group actually sat on panels that were appointed for the sole purpose of discovering their identities. Over the years, numerous “investigations” have been thwarted. As author Oney notes, everyone who played a role in Frank’s death prospered socially and financially. Many became judges, senators and lawyers.
In 1983, an 85-year-old man named Alonzo Mann announced that he knew that Leo Frank was innocent. Mann, who was Frank’s office boy, testified that he saw Jim Conley carrying the body of Mary Phagan to the basement of the plant. Conley threatened him. At home, his mother told him to keep his mouth shut. After 72 years, he decided he wanted to clear his conscience. Finally, in 1986, the state of Georgia officially “pardoned”
Leo Frank, noting that there was probable cause to believe him innocent.
No one knows what became of the murderer, Jim Conley.
As a consequence of funds provided by Endowment for the Humanities and the contributions of over 100 donors, Steve Oney’s massive documentary, And The Dead Shall Rise will serve as a basis for a PBS film that is currently in production. The film is expected to be released in the spring of 2009.
New York: Pantheon Books
$35.00 – 742 pages
Little Mary Phagan
She went to work one day;
She went to the pencil factory
To get her little pay.
- “The Ballad of Mary Phagan”
by Fiddlin’ John Carson
American history contains an abundance of dramatic court trials that have momentarily seized the attention of the entire nation, converting the public into a captive audience. However, none have done so more effectively than the Leo Frank trial (1913-1915) in Atlanta, Georgia. Before the astonishing conclusion – with the lynching of Frank near Marietta, Georgia - an entire country would have cause to question the integrity of our legal system. Almost a century after Frank’s death, the shameful details of his martyrdom – like a dark stain – still color the lives of a modern generation. (The “sins of the fathers” is an apt phrase here!)
On a Saturday morning, April 26, 1913, Mary Phagan, a thirteen-year-old girl, rode the streetcar from her home on Lindsay Street (Bellwood section) into downtown Atlanta and walked to the National Pencil Country to collect her weekly wage: $1.20. The following day, her battered, mutilated body was found in the basement of the factory. As heartrending as the murder was, it hardly seemed a cause capable of setting Jews and Gentiles against each other, provoking the anger of the national media (newspapers), and impugning the integrity of governors, senators and state/federal court judges. In retrospect, Mary Phagan’s death proved to be a catalyst – the small spark that ignited a host of bitter enmities that slept beneath the surface of Georgia’s social, political and religious facade.
Leo Frank, a twenty-nine-year-old Jew (and the product of a cultured and privileged background), supervised 170 workers (mostly teenage girls) at the National Pencil Factory. Within two days, he became a suspect, largely because the Atlanta police found him “nervous” and evasive at the murder site and during Mary’s autopsy. Despite the fact that early evidence implicated Jim Conley, an alcoholic janitor/handyman who was known to have been in the factory, Conley eventually confessed to being “an accomplice.” Specifically, he claimed that he helped Frank dispose of Mary’s body after Frank had sexually violated the child and strangled her.
The subsequent murder trial pitted two of Atlanta’s most gifted (and ambitious) attorneys against each other: Luther Rosser (defense) and Hugh Dorsey (solicitor general of Fulton County). As the weeks turned into months, the conflict between Rosser and Dorsey acquired a bitter enmity. In addition, both sides acquired help: associates and assistants, including such notables as the famous detective, William Burns and a gifted attorney named William Smith who became council for Jim Conley. However, after Frank’s conviction, Smith became convinced that Conley was solely responsible for Mary Phagan’s death. Consequently, Smith would spend the remainder of his life working for Frank’s release.
However, if any singular personality is responsible for the development of an explosive atmosphere that finally drove these warring factions into an orgy of anti-Semitism and vigilante justice, that person is Tom Watson. A charismatic orator with a gift for inciting violence, Watson was a failed politician (candidate for Vice-president with William Jennings Bryan), and editor of a racist newspaper, the Jeffersonian. Preying on the paranoia inherit in Georgia regarding the threat of abuse from “outsiders,”
Watson told his readers that “rich Jews from New York” were attempting to save the guilty Frank by bribes and political influence.
Although a growing number of people were questioning the guilty verdict (the New York Times, William Randolph Hearst, Henry Ford, etc.), the majority of the inhabitants of Georgia believed that Frank was not only a murderer, but also a “sexual pervert” – a conclusion that had been endorsed by both Hugh Dorsey and Tom Watson. In the ensuing legal battles, each appeal was rejected, including pleas before both the state and federal Supreme Courts.
With each failed appeal, outrage in rural Georgia grew – fanned by Tom Watson’s daily rants that blatantly recommended, “If they won’t hang the pervert, let us do it for them.” Watson frequently bragged of his connection with the Klan (re-named “The Knights of Mary Phagan”) and now openly requested their assistance.
Without a doubt, the most remarkable person in this tragedy is Governor John Slaton, who after read the court record and visiting the murder site, concluded that Leo Frank was innocent. He immediately commuted Frank’s sentence thereby saving him from execution. It was a decision that ruined his political career and forced him to leave the state of Georgia. However, Slaton’s decision also launched a 25-member execution squad that became known as the “lynching brethren” who drove from Marietta to Milledgeville prison where they dragged Frank from his cell and transferred him back to a wooded site two miles from Marietta called Frey’s Gin. Here, he was lynched.
Although the identity of the “lynching brethren” was well known in Marietta in the years following the lynching, no member was ever charged. (The author of And The Dead Shall Rise names them all.) In fact, as time passed, members of the group actually sat on panels that were appointed for the sole purpose of discovering their identities. Over the years, numerous “investigations” have been thwarted. As author Oney notes, everyone who played a role in Frank’s death prospered socially and financially. Many became judges, senators and lawyers.
In 1983, an 85-year-old man named Alonzo Mann announced that he knew that Leo Frank was innocent. Mann, who was Frank’s office boy, testified that he saw Jim Conley carrying the body of Mary Phagan to the basement of the plant. Conley threatened him. At home, his mother told him to keep his mouth shut. After 72 years, he decided he wanted to clear his conscience. Finally, in 1986, the state of Georgia officially “pardoned”
Leo Frank, noting that there was probable cause to believe him innocent.
No one knows what became of the murderer, Jim Conley.
As a consequence of funds provided by Endowment for the Humanities and the contributions of over 100 donors, Steve Oney’s massive documentary, And The Dead Shall Rise will serve as a basis for a PBS film that is currently in production. The film is expected to be released in the spring of 2009.
December 18, 2018
First thing’s first: this book is LONG. But for its length, it is surprisingly suspenseful. The history recounted, while extremely thorough, is never dense. And the author clearly knows his subject backwards and forwards, inside and out, and is fascinated by it. That fascination, aided by strong writing, is contagious. My knowledge of the case of Mary Phagan and Leo Frank was almost entirely based on the musical Parade. In reading a 650 page book, rather than watching a 2 ½ hour musical, it can truly be said that truth is stranger than fiction. There are so many events from real life that weren’t in the musical, probably because if they were any reasonable audience would say, “That’s ridiculous, I’m not watching this.” But perhaps more than anything, what’s so powerful about this history and this book is how relevant it is. This case features such topics as anti-Semitism, racism, police conduct (particularly towards minorities), legal corruption, allegations of sexual harassment, allegations of false harassment charges, media sensationalism, mob trial, income inequality, regionalism/tribalism/rural vs. urban, money in politics, and radical racial rhetoric. It’s eerie how much this story speaks to our times, 105 years later. The portraits drawn of the characters in this case are infinitely complex, contradictory, and riveting. The dynamics set up between characters and institutions, in places, feel downright Shakespearean. It is also just such a gigantic piece of work, merely getting through it feels monumental. But its power is real and undeniable, and it will stick with me for a long time to come.
August 3, 2012
I tried. Oh how I tried. I spent two weeks falling asleep reading this book and never passing page 190. Maybe it is a winter read for me, when I have time to really get involved in a book, but... I gave up. I will definitely revisit it, or find another book on the topic as it is pretty fascinating.
December 8, 2012
While the subject matter was interesting, I found the writing style ponderous and difficult to read. I wanted to finish the book, but just barely.
June 15, 2013
In the US, we take pride in being the home of the free and the brave; that all men are created equal, and are born with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But just how true do we live to that equality and liberty. In the book And the Dead Shall Rise, Steve Oney recounts a detailed account of the hallmark case of The People v. Leo Frank. The book the tumultuous case that proceeded the murder of Mary Phagan, a 13 year old girl working in a factory in 1913 Georgia. The case rocked the nation, and brought to light the anti-Semitism and racial tensions still simmering in the South.
Leo Frank was a Jewish man from New York. He moved down South when he was offered a job as a superintendent of the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta, Georgia. He moved down there and got married. He lived in a world, “of culture and privilege” (Oney 11). Mary Phagan was a 13 year old girl from Marietta, Georgia who moved to Atlanta two years prior to her death when her father died. She worked at the pencil factory that Leo Frank ran. Confederate Memorial Day was the last day people saw her alive. That Saturday, she left her home to go to the factory to collect her pay from Leo Frank. She was later found dead in the basement, “around 3:30 Sunday morning at the rear of the National Pencil Factory basement” (Oney 18).
Steve Oney wrote this book to inform readers of this case that kept the US on its toes. It’s a gripping tale, that is all too often misrepresented. In the musical Parade, Frank is presented in a light that characterizes him as innocent. While it’s possible that he was innocent, we’ll never know. And the Dead Shall Rise impartially presents evidence, showing both sides of the story. The book leaves readers well-nourished with facts and desiring something more.
While the book was well-written and interesting, I would not recommend this book to a friend. This book is best to be read by someone who has an interest in historical American cases or is familiar with the case from prior exposure. I read this book because I did the musical and I was interested in learning more. It was an enlightening book and kept me interested. The book is extremely interesting and informative, but it is not a very leisurely read. It is a book you must devote yourself to reading.
This book pulls away the curtain of pleasantries that were in the South. If you are looking for a non-fiction novel, I would definitely recommend this novel. The book opens your eyes to how things were and how they are now. How much and how little we have changed. It is a remarkable case that really makes you think about good and bad, and the law. It leaves you hoping for a closure you’ll never get. “Yet tragically,” the book says, “there will never be a resolution to the Frank case. The underlying tensions are too great. Had the murder of Mary Phagan not happened when it did, it would have been merely another atrocity” (Oney 649). And the Dead Shall Rise is ultimately a tragic novel, with a tumultuous, unbelievable story behind it.
Leo Frank was a Jewish man from New York. He moved down South when he was offered a job as a superintendent of the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta, Georgia. He moved down there and got married. He lived in a world, “of culture and privilege” (Oney 11). Mary Phagan was a 13 year old girl from Marietta, Georgia who moved to Atlanta two years prior to her death when her father died. She worked at the pencil factory that Leo Frank ran. Confederate Memorial Day was the last day people saw her alive. That Saturday, she left her home to go to the factory to collect her pay from Leo Frank. She was later found dead in the basement, “around 3:30 Sunday morning at the rear of the National Pencil Factory basement” (Oney 18).
Steve Oney wrote this book to inform readers of this case that kept the US on its toes. It’s a gripping tale, that is all too often misrepresented. In the musical Parade, Frank is presented in a light that characterizes him as innocent. While it’s possible that he was innocent, we’ll never know. And the Dead Shall Rise impartially presents evidence, showing both sides of the story. The book leaves readers well-nourished with facts and desiring something more.
While the book was well-written and interesting, I would not recommend this book to a friend. This book is best to be read by someone who has an interest in historical American cases or is familiar with the case from prior exposure. I read this book because I did the musical and I was interested in learning more. It was an enlightening book and kept me interested. The book is extremely interesting and informative, but it is not a very leisurely read. It is a book you must devote yourself to reading.
This book pulls away the curtain of pleasantries that were in the South. If you are looking for a non-fiction novel, I would definitely recommend this novel. The book opens your eyes to how things were and how they are now. How much and how little we have changed. It is a remarkable case that really makes you think about good and bad, and the law. It leaves you hoping for a closure you’ll never get. “Yet tragically,” the book says, “there will never be a resolution to the Frank case. The underlying tensions are too great. Had the murder of Mary Phagan not happened when it did, it would have been merely another atrocity” (Oney 649). And the Dead Shall Rise is ultimately a tragic novel, with a tumultuous, unbelievable story behind it.
August 17, 2009
Amazing historical/true crime book. I have to admit it took a bit for me to get into this because the author spends a lot of time in the beginning going over a lot of background and I'm used to true crime books getting right into the action. But I see now that this is more than simply a true crime story. It tells not only about two shocking crimes, but also about how these crimes affected the race relations of the entire country. This book is epic: devastating and un-put-downable! Being from the south I have always bristled at the negative attitude the rest of the country has towards us...now I can understand it completely. You cannot read this book and remain unaffected by it, no matter where you live. I was reading until 3 am last night when I finally passed out from exhaustion and picked it right back up as soon as I could. I recommend this book anyone who loves history, legal issues or is concerned with the issues of prejudice & bigotry.
Read
December 15, 2013It was hard to put this one down, not because I was so enthralled by it, but because I had tried for so long to get through it, and I just couldn't keep all the people, background, and circumstances straight. This would be a great book for someone who can really visualize an entire constellation of a world, circa 1913 Atlanta. I have always been fascinated with this case, but I think perhaps I will have to stick with the CNN documentary on the subject.
July 21, 2023
This is the second time I have tried to read this book
Because it is an important story
And i loved the musical, Parade, which was based on it
BUT the writing is SO Plodding and overly detailed,
I got to page 187 and just gave up
Once again.
I will not try again
Because it is an important story
And i loved the musical, Parade, which was based on it
BUT the writing is SO Plodding and overly detailed,
I got to page 187 and just gave up
Once again.
I will not try again
March 1, 2013
This story is so strange its hard to believe its true. Very captivating. hard to put down.
September 30, 2013
Too often showed bias, IMHO.
November 24, 2014
Maybe we've become desensitized, but I cannot understand how one can write 750 pages over something like this. Boring, tedious, over-worded, bla bla bla blech.
June 14, 2017
Unless your from Atlanta Georgia and don't mind a long drawn out murder, written in difficult writing and only interesting tidbits few and far between. I'd say move on to something more interesting.
dnf
December 29, 2023DNF’d at pg. 288. I started this months ago after seeing the Parade revival on Broadway, but it is just sooooooo dense. Gonna need to come back to this one 😅
February 1, 2024
The most detailed book of any crime I’ve ever read and the most fascinating crime … that happened in my hometown. If you don’t know Leo Frank’s story, you should.
August 19, 2010
I've always been fascinated by the Mary Phagan case, and the unbelievable trial and twisted public sentiment towards Leo Frank—and ultimately, its tragic conclusion.
Oney's book does a remarkable job of transporting the reader to that time and place, and one often forgets that this all transpired nearly a century ago. The key players are brought that vividly back to life. He also succeeds in conveying the general atmosphere of Atlanta in 1913, and how contemporary media so heavily influenced both sides; particularly the venomous populist Tom Watson, who bears a large portion of responsibility for manipulating the local anger and cultivating the racism that abounded.
The trial itself is relived and presented just as it unfolded, as chapters are literally dedicated to Prosecution, Defense, and Verdict; and these are paced comfortably between extensive sections that richly explore each of the lawyers, politicians, and family members connected to the case.
Despite the fact that it seems obvious that Leo Frank had nothing to do with the unfortunate demise of little Mary Phagan, Oney truly succeeds in painting a realistic, believable case both for and against him, and an understanding of how the public sentiment was distorted to doom him. One gets a clear sense of how each of these key participants believed sincerely in their cause, right or wrong; and this is most apparent in the case of William Smith, a lawyer for the prosecution who eventually saw light and spent the rest of his life trying to rectify his mistake and clear the name of Leo Frank.
My only criticism is the length of the book. At 650 pages of tight type in the paperback edition, it reads a bit longer than I felt was necessary. But it's an exhaustive study of a remarkable case, and I can't imagine anyone putting together a better account.
Oney's book does a remarkable job of transporting the reader to that time and place, and one often forgets that this all transpired nearly a century ago. The key players are brought that vividly back to life. He also succeeds in conveying the general atmosphere of Atlanta in 1913, and how contemporary media so heavily influenced both sides; particularly the venomous populist Tom Watson, who bears a large portion of responsibility for manipulating the local anger and cultivating the racism that abounded.
The trial itself is relived and presented just as it unfolded, as chapters are literally dedicated to Prosecution, Defense, and Verdict; and these are paced comfortably between extensive sections that richly explore each of the lawyers, politicians, and family members connected to the case.
Despite the fact that it seems obvious that Leo Frank had nothing to do with the unfortunate demise of little Mary Phagan, Oney truly succeeds in painting a realistic, believable case both for and against him, and an understanding of how the public sentiment was distorted to doom him. One gets a clear sense of how each of these key participants believed sincerely in their cause, right or wrong; and this is most apparent in the case of William Smith, a lawyer for the prosecution who eventually saw light and spent the rest of his life trying to rectify his mistake and clear the name of Leo Frank.
My only criticism is the length of the book. At 650 pages of tight type in the paperback edition, it reads a bit longer than I felt was necessary. But it's an exhaustive study of a remarkable case, and I can't imagine anyone putting together a better account.
June 4, 2023
An comprehensive (exhaustingly so ) study of the trial of Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan, a 13 year old employee of his. A perfect storm of Frank's guilty behavior, a rise of anti-Semitisms, concern about Child labor caused his arrest and eventual conviction for the crime. The trial, which would be consider unfair by today's standards was replete with racism, classism, and spectators' engaging in open cheering of the prosecution.
Like the Governor who commuted his sentence to life in imprison and the author, my conclusion was that Frank was probably guilty of sexual harassment but that the murder was committed by James Conley, the black man who was the chief prosecution witness (possibly the only time in American history a white man was sentence to death based on a black man testimony (see end note)). Frank was lynched by a mob that broke him out of prison. This mob was no group of drunken yahoos but a team of selected men who trained to accomplished this intricate operation.
The effect on Atlanta's Jewish population was especially saddening. The community went into turtle mode. The reform Jews blamed the newly arrived and more Orthodox Jewish immigrants for the lynching and the rise of anti-Semitism.
Highly recommended but you need to be committed to read this.
Since my original review, I learned of the case of John Wallace. Wallace was a rich white man who was convicted largely on the basis of two black men who destroyed the body on his orders. Wallace was executed in 1950 and may have been the richest man ever executed in American history.
Like the Governor who commuted his sentence to life in imprison and the author, my conclusion was that Frank was probably guilty of sexual harassment but that the murder was committed by James Conley, the black man who was the chief prosecution witness (possibly the only time in American history a white man was sentence to death based on a black man testimony (see end note)). Frank was lynched by a mob that broke him out of prison. This mob was no group of drunken yahoos but a team of selected men who trained to accomplished this intricate operation.
The effect on Atlanta's Jewish population was especially saddening. The community went into turtle mode. The reform Jews blamed the newly arrived and more Orthodox Jewish immigrants for the lynching and the rise of anti-Semitism.
Highly recommended but you need to be committed to read this.
Since my original review, I learned of the case of John Wallace. Wallace was a rich white man who was convicted largely on the basis of two black men who destroyed the body on his orders. Wallace was executed in 1950 and may have been the richest man ever executed in American history.
August 10, 2008
This is a comprehensive examination of the infamous case of the murdered poor white southern factory girl whose outsider urban Jewish employer was blamed for the crime. I read this book 5 years ago as I had always been intrigued by the case. I believe I saw a tv movie about this case about 20 years ago and it ignited my interest.
The preponderence of evidence points to the probable innocence of Leo Frank, the factory manager who was found guilty of Mary Phagan's murder. The case was embroiled in controversy from the beginning. It involved both racial and religious prejudice, the clashing of the southern small town with the northern big city cultures, a vast divide in the social standing of the victim and the alleged killer, sexual innuendo, vigilante justice in its most violent form and a memorable real life cast of characters.
Without giving too much away, this is a true tragedy on so many levels...the murder of a child, the miscarriage of justice, the echoes of misery and lack of closure...compelling true crime reading.
The preponderence of evidence points to the probable innocence of Leo Frank, the factory manager who was found guilty of Mary Phagan's murder. The case was embroiled in controversy from the beginning. It involved both racial and religious prejudice, the clashing of the southern small town with the northern big city cultures, a vast divide in the social standing of the victim and the alleged killer, sexual innuendo, vigilante justice in its most violent form and a memorable real life cast of characters.
Without giving too much away, this is a true tragedy on so many levels...the murder of a child, the miscarriage of justice, the echoes of misery and lack of closure...compelling true crime reading.
Read
May 16, 2016 This book is about Leo Frank and the murder of 13 year old Mary Phagan in 1913. Leo Frank was the manager of the Atlanta pencil factory where she was working and where she was found murder. I know that many people know this story, but Steve Oney brings a lot of new facts with a very intense foot notes. There is a lot of detail and it is not a fast read but it is well worth your time to read it. You will encounter many famous people who were involved in this case. You will read about Rabbi David Marx of the famous Reform Movement of Atlanta. You will also read about Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of the free Synagogue of New York. There are many more famous people who were involved in what happen to Leo Frank. You will witness a great about of anti-Semitism and you will learn what part the Ku Klux Klan played in the trial.
You will read about the mistakes that were made in the trial by the defense and the prosecution. You must read the book to find out about the red shirt that could have been blood or rust that was being wash by someone.
You will read about the mistakes that were made in the trial by the defense and the prosecution. You must read the book to find out about the red shirt that could have been blood or rust that was being wash by someone.
June 11, 2016
And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank by Steve Oney (Pantheon 2003) (364.1523). This is a reconstructed account of the horrible lynching of Leo Frank in Atlanta in 1913 for the rape and murder of young Mary Phagan at the Atlanta Pencil Factory. Frank was tried and convicted, but his sentence was commuted, largely because Frank, a white man, had been convicted on the word of a black man. Two months later, Frank was kidnapped from the courthouse, abducted, and hung from a tree by the neck until he died. Leo Frank was a Cornell-educated Jew in the south. But it gets worse: the mob that kidnapped him was made up of some of Atlanta's leading citizens. Author Steve Oney builds a list of the likely participants; some of these names are included on this type of list for the first time. This is a tragic story of a horrible period. There was enough shame to go around. My rating: 7/10, finished 3/17/15.
November 4, 2007
Race, class, sex, murder, and yellow journalism: the perfect storm for a modernizing Atlanta circa 1913. Throw in some good ol' southern antisemitism and this becomes creepier than ever. Oney is painstakingly thorough and impartial, but the intervening years (plus interested parties) have erased so much he can't come to many firm conclusions about the identity Mary Phagan's killer. After reading this, though, I remain convinced the murderer was not Leo Frank, and I'm certain the devil was on Jim Conley's side on that sickening April day.
This book probably could have been edited down to half its length, and I do wish Oney interjected his omniscient perspective every now and then (this account is objective to a fault), but still it's the definitive account of one of America's most resonant murder mysteries.
This book probably could have been edited down to half its length, and I do wish Oney interjected his omniscient perspective every now and then (this account is objective to a fault), but still it's the definitive account of one of America's most resonant murder mysteries.
November 30, 2011
Oney does a great job balancing both sides of the Frank case. Did Leo Frank, superintendent of a pencil factory, kill 13-year-old Mary Phagan on Confederate Memorial Day, 1913? Was it anti-Semitism that led to his conviction? Oney's journalistic background comes through in his evenhanded presentation of the facts of the Phagan murder and Frank trial; his own thoughts on the case remain hidden and he allows the reader to come to his or her own conclusions.
The book is a long one--without notes, it weighs in at 650 pages. It's engaging, but Oney does at times wander too far down side paths. A fascinating read, but one that could be slightly shorter.
Also, man, I wish it had a different picture on the cover. I didn't particularly enjoy spending a month toting around a book with a picture of a lynching on the front.
The book is a long one--without notes, it weighs in at 650 pages. It's engaging, but Oney does at times wander too far down side paths. A fascinating read, but one that could be slightly shorter.
Also, man, I wish it had a different picture on the cover. I didn't particularly enjoy spending a month toting around a book with a picture of a lynching on the front.
May 24, 2012
Though there have been more shameful parts of American history, the events described in this book cover so many levels of bigotry, fear mongering, and bloodlust it is no wonder that it continues to be an enduring yet frustrating story. With characters made up mostly greys, innocent Lucille Frank and Mary Phagan and despicable Tom Watson (he seriously has a statue? SERIOUSLY?) and Newt Morris being among the few exceptions, the author seeks to take no sides and lets the facts speak for him. Reading true crime sometimes has the affect of making me ponder what the dead would say if they could see the actions undertaken in their name. This was especially true for this book.
November 13, 2012
This true-life crime story is riveting, but exhaustively comprehensive; it's not for the faint of heart. I did find myself speed reading through redundant descriptions of testimony, but the author does a good job of highlighting the many political nuances and conflicting motivations of many of the key figures in the courtroom drama. Bottom line: This is a great non-fiction read that speaks volumes about how media shapes public sentiment- a message that still resonates in a Twitter-fied society. I was fascinated by the character studies, not only of individuals, but of Georgia itself. I enjoyed this just as much as Capote's "In Cold Blood."
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