1910's Lifestyles and Social Trends | Frank, Leo 1884-1915

MANUFACTURER, LYNCHING VICTIM

Lynched.

Among the most notorious events in America during the 1910s was the lynching of Leo Frank on 16 August 1915 in the woods outside Marietta, Georgia. Frank had been convicted of murder in August 1913, but as his case gained notoriety, his guilt was increasingly questioned, and the anti-Semitic fervor that had surrounded his trial received increasing news coverage, especially in the North. Governor John M. Slaton, after reviewing the case, commuted Frank's death sentence in June 1915, but a frenzied mob refused to accept Slaton's judgment. Frank was abducted from prison and hanged.

Background.

Born in Texas in 1884, Frank was raised in New York City. He attended the Pratt Institute, then graduated from Columbia University in 1906 with a degree in mechanical engineering. After briefly working in Boston, he moved to Atlanta, where he became superintendent of the National...