Marx said the new residents were "barbaric and ignorant" and believed their presence would create new antisemitic attitudes and a situation which made possible Frank's guilty verdict. Friction developed between the city's German Jews, who were integrated, and Russian Jews who had recently immigrated. In order to aid assimilation, Marx's Reform temple adopted Americanized appearances. In the half-century from 1895, David Marx was a prominent figure in the city. ĭuring this era, Atlanta's rabbis and Jewish community leaders helped to resolve animosity toward Jews. Men from the traditional and paternalistic rural society felt it degrading that women were moving to the city to work in factories. To serve a growing economy based on manufacturing and commerce, many people left the countryside to relocate in Atlanta. In the early 20th century, Atlanta, Georgia's capital city, underwent significant economic and social change. īackground Social and economic conditions His case spurred the creation of the Anti-Defamation League and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. The case has inspired books, movies, a play, a musical, and a TV miniseries. In 1986, Frank was posthumously pardoned by the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, although not officially absolved of the crime. The new governor vowed to punish the lynchers, who included prominent Marietta citizens, but nobody was charged. On August 16, 1915, he was kidnapped from prison by a group of armed men, and lynched at Marietta, Mary Phagan's hometown, the next morning. Within Georgia, this outside criticism fueled antisemitism and hatred toward Frank. The case attracted national press attention and many reporters deemed the conviction a travesty. Slaton commuted Frank's sentence from capital punishment to life imprisonment. Considering arguments from both sides as well as evidence not available at trial, Governor John M. Frank and his lawyers made a series of unsuccessful appeals their final appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States failed in April 1915. A guilty verdict was announced on August 25. The prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of Conley, who described himself as an accomplice in the aftermath of the murder, and who the defense at the trial argued was, in fact, the perpetrator of the murder. On May 24, 1913, Frank was indicted on a charge of murder and the case opened at Fulton County Superior Court, July 28, 1913. Over the course of their investigations, the police arrested several men, including Lee, Frank, and Jim Conley, a janitor at the factory. Based on the mention of a "night witch", they implicated the night watchman, Newt Lee. Two notes, made to look as if she had written them, were found beside her body. The girl was strangled on April 26, 1913, and found dead in the factory's cellar the next morning. One of these children was Mary Phagan, who worked at the National Pencil Company where Frank was director. At that time, there were growing concerns regarding child labor at factories. Marrying in 1910, he involved himself with the city's Jewish community and was elected president of the Atlanta chapter of the B'nai B'rith, a Jewish fraternal organization, in 1912. Today, the consensus of researchers is that Frank was wrongly convicted and Jim Conley was likely the actual murderer.īorn to a Jewish-American family in Texas, Frank was raised in New York and earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University before moving to Atlanta in 1908. His lynching two years later, in response to the commutation of his death sentence, became the focus of social, regional, political, and racial concerns, particularly regarding antisemitism. His trial, conviction, and appeals attracted national attention. Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884 – August 17, 1915) was an American factory superintendent who was convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia.
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