Customer Reviews

The Leo Frank Case (A Brown Thrasher Book)

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I got interested in this case after reading a large write up in the local paper, the Atlanta Journal constitution, which is quoted many times in the book. I like historical books and was really amazed at the semitic overtones in the south during the civil war. As stated by reveiwer C. Ellen, it was written well and put into context with other goings on in that period. Being from Atlanta myself, I could very easily relate to the narative and it held my facination throughout. It told what I beleive to be the complete story and facts as well as being updated for NEW release in 1987 by adding an additional preface. Anyone who is interested in civil war reads, the laws of the time , or who lives in or around Atlanta , will be interested in this book. Over 50 pages of it are dedicated to the bibliography and all facts are well documented. It is a story that is all to reminiscent of famous cases that have arrisen in the past few years. It's a sad commentary on just how far the attitudes of this nation have come in the past 100 years or so. If interested in further information after reading this book, then I suggest trying to contact the Atlanta Journal Constitution for their brilliant account of the incident in the June 11, 2000 addition of their paper. It also gives a partial list of the lynching mob, held in secretcy until this time. A great book to own for any historical book collection.

As a judge, a lawyer and an historian I had heard about the Leo Frank case but did not know the details. Leonard Dinnerstein does an excellent job of relating the story of Leo Frank in a fair and unbiased manner. He also puts the entire affair in a historical context. This would be an excellent read for any student of racism in America and of the New South. It is easy to read and has an excellent bibliography.

Dinnerstein does a beautiful job in eloquently presenting the facts of the famous Leo Frank case. All angles of the case are examined in a thorough, impartial manner. A must read for anyone familiar with the Frank case, and well worth looking into for anyone who loves a good murder mystery.

The circumstances and attitudes that coincided in the trial of Leo Frank, had very little to do with the accused or the victim. They were both surrogates for a larger battle; Leo Frank was proxy for Northern industrialists and "Little Mary Phagan" stood in for the victimized South who had been taken advantage of by Northern opportunists.

The fact is that the case of Leo Frank acted as a steam valve, in many respects, to the buildup of Southern frustration and anger that had grown since the Civil War, then through Reconstruction and its aftermath. Southern Pride took a near-mortal blow when Lee surrendered to Sherman at Appomattox, humiliating the survivors of hundreds of thousands of dead. Reconstruction brought in Northern carpetbaggers who participated in the governments of the states that they had just defeated. Southern anger accumulated, especially as attempts to overturn it were thwarted until the contested election of 1876, in which Rutherford B. Hayes won on the condition of agreeing to end Reconstruction.

Reconstruction allowed Southern states to exact a measure of revenge on black populations, although resentment toward the North remained unavenged. In an honor-bound society such as the South, it is very difficult to imagine that wrong to one's family would go without settling the score. Such is the larger metaphor of the South as a whole to the North. Southern society and culture prided itself on being a distinct and cultured entity from the slavish industrialists of the North.

Thus, when a stereotypical Northern carpetbagger, a Jew no less, found himself in connection with the violent death of a Southern belle, vengeance became a powerful a prevailing force. Upon Leo Frank was heaped all of the indignation from Southern loss to the North - the industrialization, forcing young girls to work in factories; the ownership of capital; the imposition of Reconstruction; Lincoln marching into Richmond - all Southern rage at the North was embodied in the trial of Leo Frank. (Ironically, a Northern newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst, fed the flames through his acquisition of the Atlanta Georgian, which led the pack in sensationalizing the trial.)

All of this is to say that the forces which demanded that Leo Frank be the sacrificial lamb for the North's crimes against the South were too powerful for rational legal procedures. If the governor had reversed the conviction or the commuted the sentence, he would have been denying the mob the satisfaction of revenge. The lynching of Frank did give rise to the Klu Klux Klan, however the immediate reaction of Georgia (and the South) was a demand for justice, even though it was at the end of a rope.

It is telling that Frank did not receive a pardon of his conviction until 1986, and even that was amid controversy in the South. Those eighty years had to pass before rational analysis of a crime could be carried out and a form of justice could be executed, which lends perspective to the heft of the event in the history of the South. Tom Watson's remark was an astute reflection of the prevailing sentiment of the day and offers a glimpse into larger, unresolved tensions of the day.

The 'Leo Frank Case' by Leonard Dinnerstein is easy to read, but not historically accurate. You would think someone who spent more than 50 years studying the case (Leonard Dinnerstein did his dissertation on the subject) would give you an honest and accurate portrayal of the facts, evidence and testimony, but alas he doesn't, and it's truly disappointing. I can not fathom why a university professor would fabricate and re-write history, when one can now easily check all the facts by accessing the primary sources and official legal documents online at the Georgia State Archive.

The book is basically pseudo-history wrapped in pseudo-scholarly bias and over simplification. Having read all of Leonard Dinnersteins books, I have noticed his tendency to over simplify things and in this case give misleading portraits of facts, evidence and testimony in their context.

The book is dishonestly spun to make Leo Frank seem like he was an innocent victim of a vast anti-semitic conspiracy by the Superior Court of Georgia, Supreme Court of Georgia, Federal District Court of the United States and United States Supreme Court, but nothing is further from the truth. Leonard Dinnerstein left out volumes of the damaging evidence, testimony and facts against Leo Frank.

After reading this book, the only conclusion I have come to is Leonard Dinnerstein can not be considered a reliable source of scholarly and academic research. If you want a more accurate portrait of the Leo Frank case, read 'The Murder of Little Mary Phagan' by Mary Phagan Kean.