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Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884 – August 17, 1915) was an American factory superintendent and lynching victim. He was convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia. Frank's trial, conviction, and unsuccessful appeals attracted national attention. His kidnapping from prison and lynching became the focus of social, regional, political, and racial concerns, particularly regarding antisemitism. Modern researchers generally agree that Frank was wrongly convicted. Born 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. 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. At that time, there were growing concerns regarding child labor at factories. One of these children was Mary Phagan, who worked at the National Pencil Company where Frank was director. The girl was strangled on April 26, 1913, and found dead in the factory's cellar the next morning. Two notes, made to look as if she had written them, were found beside her body. Based on the mention of a "night witch", they implicated the night watchman, Newt Lee. Over the course of their investigations, the police arrested several men, including Lee, Frank, and Jim Conley, a janitor at the factory. On May 24, 1913, Frank was indicted on a charge of murder and the case opened at Fulton County Superior Court, on July 28. 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. A guilty verdict was announced on August 25. 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. Considering arguments from both sides as well as evidence not available at trial, Governor John M. Slaton commuted Frank's sentence from capital punishment to life imprisonment. The case attracted national press attention and many reporters deemed the conviction a travesty. Within Georgia, this outside criticism fueled antisemitism and hatred toward Frank. 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. The new governor vowed to punish the lynchers, who included prominent Marietta citizens, but nobody was charged. In 1986, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a pardon in recognition of the state's failures—including to protect Frank and preserve his opportunity to appeal—but took no stance on Frank's guilt or innocence. The case has inspired books, movies, a play, a musical, and a TV miniseries. The African American press condemned the lynching, but many African Americans also opposed Frank and his supporters over what historian Nancy MacLean described as a "virulently racist" characterization of Jim Conley, who was Black. His case spurred the creation of the Anti-Defamation League and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. Background Social and economic conditions In the early 20th century, Atlanta, Georgia's capital city, underwent significant economic and social change. To serve a growing economy based on manufacturing and commerce, many people left the countryside to relocate in Atlanta. Men from the traditional and paternalistic rural society felt it degrading that women were moving to the city to work in factories. During this era, Atlanta's rabbis and Jewish community leaders helped to resolve animosity toward Jews. In the half-century from 1895, David Marx was a prominent figure in the city. In order to aid assimilation, Marx's Reform temple adopted Americanized appearances. Friction developed between the city's German Jews, who were integrated, and Russian Jews who had recently immigrated. Marx said the new Russian Jews were "barbaric and ignorant" and believed their presence would create new antisemitic attitudes and a situation which made possible Frank's guilty verdict. Despite their success, many Jews recognized themselves as different from the Gentile majority and were uncomfortable with their image. Despite his own acceptance by Gentiles, Marx believed that "in isolated instances there is no prejudice entertained for the individual Jew, but there exists wide-spread and deep seated prejudice against Jews as an entire people." An example of the type of tension that Marx feared occurred in April 1913: at a conference on child labor, some participants blamed the problem, in part, on the fact that many factories were Jewish-owned. Historian Leonard Dinnerstein summarized Atlanta's situation in 1913 as follows: The pathological conditions in the city menaced the home, the state, the schools, the churches, and, in the words of a contemporary Southern sociologist, the 'wholesome industrial life.' The institutions of the city were obviously unfit to handle urban problems. Against this background, the murder of a young girl in 1913 triggered a violent reaction of mass aggression, hysteria, and prejudice. Early life Leo Max Frank was born in Cuero, Texas on April 17, 1884, to Rudolph Frank and Rachel "Rae" Jacobs. The family moved to Brooklyn when Leo was three months old. He attended New York City public schools and graduated from Pratt Institute in 1902. He then attended Cornell University, where he studied mechanical engineering. After graduating in 1906, he worked briefly as a draftsman and as a testing engineer. At the invitation of his uncle Moses Frank, Leo traveled to Atlanta for two weeks in late October 1907, to meet a delegation of investors for a position with the National Pencil Company, a manufacturing plant in which Moses was a major shareholder. Frank accepted the position, and traveled to Germany to study pencil manufacturing at the Eberhard Faber pencil factory. After a nine-month apprenticeship, Frank returned to the United States and began working at the National Pencil Company in August 1908. Frank became superintendent of the factory the following month, earning $180 per month plus a portion of the factory's profits. Frank was introduced to Lucille Selig shortly after he arrived in Atlanta. She came from a prominent, upper-middle class Jewish family of industrialists who, two generations earlier, had founded the first synagogue in Atlanta. They married in November 1910. Frank described his married life as happy. In 1912, Frank was elected president of the Atlanta chapter of the B'nai B'rith, a Jewish fraternal organization. The Jewish community in Atlanta was the largest in the Southern United States, and the Franks belonged to a cultured and philanthropic community whose leisure pursuits included opera and bridge. Although the Southern United States was not specifically known for its.... Discover the Jeffrey Melnick popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jeffrey Melnick books.