Customer Reviews

And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank

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I'm from Atlanta, and became interested in the Leo Frank case as a teen in the '50s. I remember many of the actual buildings before they were destroyed to make way for the "New" Atlanta. I read every book, newspaper account, court report, and Internet account that I could find.

This book is the best of the best. Oney puts you on the streets and in the buildings of Atlanta at the turn of the last century. He introduces you to the characters and makes you aware of the shifting intrigue and alliances. This is more than a book about little Mary Phagan and Leo Frank - it is a small glimpse of the times. You see the affects of child labor, workweeks of 66+ hours, wealth, poverty, and class warfare.

Both sides of the issue are fully laid out. Before reading this book, I had no doubt that Frank was innocent and Connelly was guilty. Now I'm only sure of one thing - the crowd that took law into its own hands robbed us of ever having a chance to find the whole truth.

Everyone seemed to play a part in this travesty - the "keystone" cops, attorneys, judges, newspapers, and everyday citizens. The only true innocent is poor Mary Phagan.

Great book - a must read for anyone interested in the history of the industrial revolution coming of age in the new south.

Steve Oney's book will stand as the definitive account of the Leo Frank case. Frank, the superintendent of an Atlanta pencil factory, was accused of murdering one of his employees, 13-year-old Mary Phagan, in 1913. His trial was conducted in an atmosphere of anti-Semitism, and, despite the lack of solid evidence against him, Frank was found guilty and sentenced to death -- due mainly to testimony from Jim Conley, a factory janitor who was probably the real killer. When Georgia's governor commuted Frank's sentence to life in prison, a lynch mob, formed by several leading citizens of Marietta, abducted Frank from prison and hung him from a tree. Oney retells the whole tragic tale with great detail but also considerable flair. The book clocks in at 700 pages but never feels dense or tedious. It is a spell-binding read that is difficult to put down. (Please disregard complaints by other reviewers that the book is too long or too detailed. This is an exhaustive account; a reasonably intelligent person who does not have the attention span of a gnat will find it no problem to get through.) Oney, a journalist by profession, tells the story with verve and style. Copiously researched and beatifully written, this book isn't just a "true crime" story from long ago. To the perceptive reader, it demonstrates the dangers of mob mentality and the threat posed by demagogues in politics and the media. It also brutally illustrates what can go wrong when people decide to ignore the rule of law.

Steve Oney's "And the Dead Shall Rise" is the long overdue definitive account of the lynching of Leo Frank and the preceding and succeeding events. The seventeen years Oney spent researching and writing the book are extremely apparent in the painstaking, harrowing, and often excruciating detail. Oney maintains an extremely objective and historical narrative, yet is able to keep the prose lively enough to captivate the reader, as he systematically presents the thoroughly researched facts about the events that occurred almost daily from the murder of little Mary Phagan to the aftermath of the Frank lynching. The combination of Oney's use of irony and occasional analogy along with the cast of Dickensian and often sinister characters (Tom Watson, Hugh Dorsey, Jim Conley) gives the book the feeling of a novel. The title, drawn from a quote by Nietzsche, asserts that by discussing and writing about the dead, we bring them back to life. Without a doubt, the book is deserving of its title for it is exactly what Oney does. Lost in the extreme detail and caught in the emotional battles involved in the case, the reader often feels that the events described are actually occurring. "And the Dead Shall Rise" is the authoritative account of an event which captures the sheer ignorance, hatred and greed of the early twentieth century American south.

On April 26, 1913, the thirty ninth anniversary of the end of the civil war, 13 year old Mary Phagan went to collect her $1.20 in wages from Superintendent Leo M. Frank where she worked at the National Pencil factory on Forsyth Street- but she never came back. Frank who was Northern and Jewish was charged of the crime the very next day. Anti-Semitism was an ever present yet rarely spoken of theme in the two year long world famous trial. Nearly everyone involved in the case (Dorsey, Smith, Watson, Rosser, Lanford, Black, Hearst and more) seems to have a political agenda. The guilt or innocence of Leo Frank matters only to many in terms of their political careers. In many ways the authorities were after Frank from the very beginning. When Jim Conley was finally arrested, and and extremely large amount of evidence pointed towards him as the murderer, Dorsey and the Atlanta police department bent their backs to make it look like Conley was only an accomplice to the murder and Leo Frank actually committed the crime. Countless incidents show politicians hunger for power and political agendas. Not to mention the three Atlanta newspapers: the Journal, the Constitution, and the Georgian (run by William Randolph Hearst) who were all trying to make as much money as possible paying little to no heed to who they were accusing or defending. Frank was convicted for the Murder of Mary Phagan and was sentenced to death. Governor Slaton, who knew about more evidence than the public did, shortly before leaving office commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Anti-Semitism in Georgia sky-rocketed, and Frank was dragged from his prison cell by a lynch mob and hanged in Marietta. The real breakthrough of Oney's book, however, is that it was a state crime. It had to be. Frank was one of the most famous prisoners in America, and the lynch mob literally came into the heavily guarded prison and within minutes snatched Frank and left. One of the ringleaders of the lynching was former governor Joe Brown, whose statue resides today at the Georgia State capitol building. Oney produces a thoroughly researched list of names of the lynchers and organizers of the lynching of Leo Frank
The lynching of Leo Frank is a story which embodies America's fear and power and serves as an exemplar of southern hatred towards northerners and Jews.

After establishing himself as a journalist, having written articles for Esquire, GQ, and the New Yorker, Oney wrote an article about the murder of Mary Phagan for Esquire Magazine. So enthralled in the subject, he felt he had to pursue it. "And the Dead Shall Rise" is a product of seventeen years, longer than Mary Phagan lived, of extreme research. Oney, not a Jew, tried to take the most objective standpoint as possible. When starting the book he erased all previous preconceptions about the case. He dug up all of the old newspapers, affidavits, and detective work to present in the book. He interviewed many of the remaining relatives of people involved in the case, obtaining valuable information. Also, the book is filled with historical events from Atlanta and Georgia history that help the reader understand the events of the trial, providing readers not only with information about Leo Frank but about the history of Atlanta's Black and Jewish communities. The book is presented as facts, and he is able to keep the prose captivating without giving too many of his own opinions, letting readers decide. Oney remarked that he believed Frank was "Ninety-Five percent innocent" (a remark which I scoffed at due to my preconceptions of the case as a Jew) leaving the door a little bit ajar and revealing his true objectivity. Oney takes advantage of his skills as a journalist and as a historian, which is for the best unless you are opposed to stuffy writing. All in all, Oney does an incredible job with this book, establishing himself among the great historians.

"And the Dead Shall Rise" needed to be written. Our generation, and the generations to come, needs to be informed about these darker sides of history. Oney provides an extremely detailed account of an incident that may very well have been forgotten. Enthralling and informing readers, Oney has produced an astounding historical work filled with rich detail. Anyone who wants to learn more about the darker side of Georgia's (and America's) past must read this book.

There was a time, and it was not too long ago, when lynchings were common in America. It was mostly a southern phenomenon, and it was mostly whites lynching blacks. Because its victim had become an international cause before he was killed, the most famous lynching was that of Leo Frank, not a black but a Jew, in 1915. The tale of this atrocity has been told before, but never with the detail and sweep found in _And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank_ (Pantheon) by Steve Oney. It is a huge book, a result of seventeen years of research, and provides insights into the case from sources that have previously not been consulted. Despite the detail, Oney's essentially chronological narrative maintains intensity throughout. We already know that Frank gets lynched in the end, but the events leading up to the lynching are still suspenseful, and the varied aspects of the aftermath are still surprising.

The chronology begins with Mary Phagan, thirteen years old and an employee of the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta, of which Frank was superintendent. On 27 April 1913, her body was discovered in the basement of the factory. Suspicion turned to a black janitor, Jim Conley, who gave three different contradictory versions of his story to police. His final version was that Frank tried to seduce Mary Phagan while Conley stood guard for his superintendent, and then that he and Conley disposed of the body in the basement. When Frank was interviewed, he was visibly nervous, and urged by the Atlanta papers, police arrested him. It was easy for demagogues in Atlanta to rake up the old stories about Jewish plots or financial vampires sucking hard-laboring Christians dry, and whatever Frank's chance in the courtroom, public outrage against him was constant. Convicted, he was given a last minute commutation from death sentence to life imprisonment by the outgoing governor, since his cause was internationally known. Spurred by the demagoguery of Tom Watson and his weekly _Jeffersonian_, citizens of Marietta, Phagan's family home, organized an astonishing military-like operation to break into Frank's prison, transport him to Marietta, and lynch him. The citizens trooped out to see the hanging body, and one woman said she could not stand to see a hanging, "But this - this is different. It is all right. It is - the justice of God." Crowds enjoyed hearing the hymn "That Old Time Religion."

Not a single conspirator in the lynching was prosecuted. This was partially because one of their members was put in charge of the grand jury examining the case. Some of them went on to further civic careers. The lynching was a spark in the modern revival of the Ku Klux Klan. It also sparked B'nai B'rith to found the Anti-Defamation League. Tom Watson rode his popularity into the US Senate in 1920. Oney is especially good at giving a social history of Atlanta and the relations between blacks, whites, and Jews within it. His portraits of the many individuals nationwide who were involved in the case are excellent, with the most interesting being that of lawyer William Smith. Smith, after coaching Conley and thus assisting in Frank's conviction, became convinced that the trial's outcome was wrong, and began doing his own research into the case, amassing a body of facts that should have come to light during the trial. Although Conley is now generally thought to have been the true culprit, Oney quite rightly does not come down on one side or the other. He reports the evidence as given at the trial, almost all of it circumstantial, and the contradictions, and the evidence on both sides tainted by bribery. The result is a spectacular demonstration of narrative power through intensive detail; _And the Dead Shall Rise_ is factual history written with all the dash of a thriller.

Steve Oney admits that much about the murder of little Mary Phagan and the lynching of Leo Frank will never be known, but he has nevertheless done an outstanding job of tracking down as much information as possible in order to tell the story. And the Dead Shall Rise is a superb work of scholarship and journalism. It begins with little Mary's ill fated trip to her workplace in April, 1913 to pick up her pay from Leo Frank,then continues through the discovery of her body in the factory basement,and the subsequent investigation, arrest, and trial of Frank. This was surely one of the first trials of the century for the twentieth century, and Oney takes us through it step by step and witness by witness.

After the trial ends with Frank's conviction, Oney chronicles the media frenzy, both pro- and anti-Frank, that swept Georgia and the nation. He details the long appeals process and, when that ended with Frank's conviction confirmed, examines the process by which Georgia's Governor Slaton commuted the death sentence. It is here that the story becomes even more chilling, as Oney details Frank's life in the Milledgeville prison on the one hand and describes the plans being laid to lynch him on the other.

I don't believe a full listing of the men involved in Leo Frank's lynching in August, 1915 has ever been published before now. Oney names names, extremely prominent ones in many cases, and fully describes Frank's kidnapping and lynching and the gruesome aftermath when thousands flocked to see his body. The book ends with summings up of the subsequent careers of most of the most prominent characters in the affair.

Reading this book was a real shock to me. As a native Georgian I had heard of the Frank case for years. This book was the first time I fully appreciated the frenzy that swept over the state and the stain it left on us for years. I was shocked by the depths of the anti-Semitism and hatred of non-Southerners revealed amongst Georgians at the time. This book needs to be read by everyone, regardless of your background or heritage, in order to remind us of the anger and hatred that can arise within us.

Having been raised in Atlanta's Jewish community, I had heard a about the Mary Phagan case. My grandparents remembered it first hand but would not talk about it. The case came alive in the mid-80's with a startling statement from one of those involved and a made-for-TV-movie. But now I realize I didn't know nearly enough about the case.

Oney's exhaustive and exhausting recounting of the Mary Phagan case is an example of how history should be written. He lays out the context of the events, keeps up with the news accounts of the case that electrified the nation and quotes extensively from the actual trial transcript. Coming out of this, I feel I know as much as is knowable about the case.

When I started, I was convinced that Leo Frank was an innocent convicted by anti-semistism and Jim Connoly was guilty. I'm not so sure now. I'm sure that Frank should never have been convicted on such a flimsy case. And while I think it's likely Connely murdered Phagan, he was never tried for it, never mounted a defense. Because of the tragic ending of the matter and the silence that fell over the participants, we may never know the truth.

I'm also no longer sure how much anti-semitism played into the prosecution. Much of their behavior seems like the desperate acts of a legal system trying to restore their tarnished reputation by winning a highly publicized case. They started out with only one suspect and then canted everything toward that end, even accepting a very suspect witness and intimidating others. However, their talk of Brooklyn money and irrelevant inflammatory and suspect accusations of perversion not only were key to the verdict but helped inflame the crowd that would ultimately murder Frank.

That's the beauty of this book. It is fair to both sides. It goes into the sometimes sleazy machinations and misguided tactics of Frank's legal team. It makes sure we hear out all comers.

Only two men come out looking good -- Governor Slaton, who risked his career and his life to grant clemency to Frank. Governors residing over executions today would be advised to show a tenth of the diligence Slaton did. WIlliam Smith also comes off well as the noble lawyer who forsook fortune to represent blacks and then risked his life to try to exonerate Frank.

Villains? Plenty of them. And even more depressing is that the villains in this case went on to greater success and fortune than the heros. The worst of them is Tom Watson, the firebrand who continually stoked the mob with half-truths and anti-semitic invective until the inevitable happened. William Burns also comes off badly, having little control of his detectives as they bribed and cajoled exculpatory testimony from witnesses -- an act which made the situation far worse.

Above all, this is a portrait of the South in the 1910's and the signal event that changed it for the next half century. I feel like I understand my home state better after reading it.

This is a gripping, disturbing story, told in epic fashion. Oney's talents are many: he is a storyteller who does not lose sight of the analysis; a historian capable of telling both the big and little picture; a talented researcher who knows how to use his material; adept at charting his way through arcane legal proceedings. really, this is an unusually well-done book about an important event, and well worth reading.

An absorbing American tragedy is literately and painstakingly explored in this worthy book. So many Americans were lynched in the bad old days; why is it that the average American can name, at most, two victims of lynch law, Emmett Till and Leo Frank? I don't know, but to read this book is to understand why Frank's death at the hands of a mob is a crime that refuses to die. The author meticulously depicts the yellow journalism of the time, and the rivalries of the Atlanta papers, that all but created the story of the murder of a working-class white girl in a pencil factory at the hands, it was charged, of the factory's young, northern-born Jewish manager. The story teems with ironies, not least of which is that a well-educated, well-spoken white man who appeared to be a member of the privileged class was convicted of murder and sentenced to die solely on the word of an nearly illiterate denizen of the mudsill, black janitor Jim Conley-who almost certainly committed the crime himself. It is also a sober lesson in early 20th-century American antisemitism. A massive outpouring of money and legal talent and support from the papers and philanthropists of the North succeeded at last in commuting Frank's death sentence to life, but lost him to a lynch mob almost immediately thereafter, proving to Atlanta's nearly-assimilated Jews that they were outsiders after all. Without ever stating his own conclusions-the author almost ruthlessly refuses to provide us any-he makes the case that Frank might have well been creepy, but he was no murderer. The usual hero of the story is the governor who commuted Frank's sentence, knowing it would end his own career, but Oney's choice is Conley's one-time lawyer, who became an advocate of Frank's innocence. Oney depicts him with sympathy and admiration; he also draws a moving portrait of Lucille Frank, from her girlhood to her long empty decades as Frank's widow. I do wish Oney had tried to explain why Conley's lawyer, who firmly but tardily rejected his client's claim of innocence and campaigned to clear Frank's name, ever believed Conley in the first place. And Oney leaves unanswered what to me is the biggest mystery lingering from the Frank case: why the grand juries, the prosecutor, and the white South at large all were willing to let Conley get away with murder. Even accepting that the murder of Mary Phagan had been transformed into a crime too "big" to be atoned for with the blood of just another black thug, it is hard to imagine, nearly a century later, how the howling mob was willing to let a black "despoiler of white womanhood" get away. That mystery persists, but I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in American race relations or in the history of the South in general. An excellent effort.

This is one of those long, complex, involved books that inevitably drags in the middle somewhat, but which contains a ton of fascinating detail and anecdote about an interesting, if dark chapter in American history. In 1913 Atlanta, a young factory worker forever known as "little Mary Phagan" was murdered, and the police soon settled on the manager of her factory, Leo Frank, as her killer. After he was tried and convicted, and sentenced to death, the governor of Georgia commuted his sentence to life in prison. Outraged at what they saw as a travesty of justice, an organized group from her hometown of Marietta, Georgia, staged a raid on the prison where he was held, and lynched him.

All of this, and its aftermath, is recounted in considerable detail by former Atlanta journalist Oney. At times things do drag, especially during Frank's trial and the subsequent appeals and motions that were universally against Frank, right up until his sentence was commuted. The lynching is not treated in so much detail (largely because it's still apparently a raw nerve for local residents, many of whom the author reports as reluctant to talk) but the aftermath of the whole incident is indeed fascinating.

I enjoyed this book, long though it was. It has a great deal of detail and interesting information in it, and the characters, some of them, are fascinating.

I came across an article on this book in the Atlanta paper, and since my family lived in the area in 1913, I've grown up on stories of the murder of Mary Phagan, and subsequent lynching of Leo Frank, which captured the imagination of the south much like the JonBenet Ramsey case captured America a few years ago. I had hoped that this new study of the murder would cast even more light on the subjection, and was not disappointed. I can't imagine a more thorough look into this strange and contradictory case, all well-documented and written with a calm and straight-forward eye. I've read one previous book on the murder, but this one is far and away superior, with even Leo Frank himself speaking from the grave, as it were, in the form of letters to his wife Lucille. Until now I'd only seen photographs of him, but from his love letters to his wife, he emerges as thoughtful and cautious, a hardworking young man. It is incredible to read along, knowing that in the end, he'll end up lynched.

This book will be a fascinating read for anyone interested in southern history, or crime, or even a glimpse into the history of the city of Atlanta, with its political alliances, and shifting loyalties. Five Stars, highly recommended.