And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank | 
 enlarge | Author: Steve Oney
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
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Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 195980
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 784
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.6
ISBN: 0679764232
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.152309758231
EAN: 9780679764236
ASIN: 0679764232
Publication Date: October 12, 2004
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Condition: In stock, paperback, markings/highlights inside, ship fast
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Product Description
In 1913, 13-year-old Mary Phagan was found brutally murdered in the basement of the Atlanta pencil factory where she worked. The factory manager, a college-educated Jew named Leo Frank, was arrested, tried, and convicted in a trial that seized national headlines. When the governor commuted his death sentence, Frank was kidnapped and lynched by a group of prominent local citizens.
Steve Oney’s acclaimed account re-creates the entire story for the first time, from the police investigations to the gripping trial to the brutal lynching and its aftermath. Oney vividly renders Atlanta, a city enjoying newfound prosperity a half-century after the Civil War, but still rife with barely hidden prejudices and resentments. He introduces a Dickensian pageant of characters, including zealous policemen, intrepid reporters, Frank’s martyred wife, and a fiery populist who manipulated local anger at Northern newspapers that pushed for Frank’s exoneration. Combining investigative journalism and sweeping social history, this is the definitive account of one of American history’s most repellent and most fascinating moments.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 American Tragedies May 4, 2008
If one is interested in the Leo Frank case, this book is a must. It includes a tremendous amount of detail on his trial and subsequent appeals. And more importantly, the book allows us to understand how his lynching was planned, carried out, and covered up. It is a rather long book, but it is written in a compelling style, and because of this I think that most readers will find it difficult to put down.
I have read other books that deal with the series of events covered in this book and in terms of information this book dwarfs all of those other works. Nevertheless, even after reading this volume I found myself wanting to know more and I assume that others will feel the same way.
 Very even-handed account March 19, 2008
Steve Oney pulls the reader in right away, setting the scene and describing the key players. The narrative bogs down a bit during the investigation of the crime, so you may find yourself wanting to put the book down, but push through it because from the trial onward, it's a page-turner.
Has earned a place in my library October 25, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
Compelling History April 12, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The story is disturbing as are all injustices. But it's journalistic style is well presented and all the cultural bases are covered. A really good read.
Gripping Tale February 5, 2006
5 out of 18 found this review helpful
This is the type of book that once started, is very difficult to put down. I had heard about this case, and generally believed the story that an innocent man was convicted for a murder he didn't commit. After reading this very objective and detailed book, I realized that this was not the case. Instead, it's about a very well connected Jewish factory superintendent (Leo Frank) using his influence to try to pin the murder on an uneducated black janitor. The primary reasons that I believe Frank committed the murder of 13-year Mary Phagan are as follows:
- Frank lied to the police about knowing Mary Phagan. Several witnesses testified that he not only knew her, but had made sexual advances toward her.
- Witnesses testified that Frank regularly made sexual advances to the teenage girls who worked for him. Witnesses also testified that he used Saturday afternoons (the murder was committed on a Saturday) to have sexual relations with factory girls - and sometimes local prostitutes. He even paid one of the janitors (Jim Conley - the man he tried to pin the murder on) to keep watch for him in case his wife or someone else tried to walk in on him.
- Frank was the last person to see Mary Phagan alive. He also knew in advance that she would be coming by the factory the Saturday of the murder to pick up her pay check.
- Frank offered to pay Jim Conley to help him move the body to the basement furnace for disposal at a convenient time.
- Frank was extremely nervous when confronted by the police and couldn't give an accurate account of his exact movements on the day of the murder.
- Frank's lawyers offered no reasonable defense to the charges. The best they could do was have dozens of his wealthy friends from the local B'nai Brith testify that he was a wonderful person.
The unfortunate end to this story (the lynching of Leo Frank) was the result of native Georgians being resentful of Frank using his influence with the governer of Georgia (his lawyer was the governor's law partner) to get his death sentence commuted. Frank also used his influence with the local Jewish community to put pressure on the U.S. Supreme court, NY Times, Baltimore Sun, and several Atlanta newspapers to get the conviction overturned. In summary, this book is not about an innocent man being convicted. Instead it's about a wealthy and influential individual who used his influence to get his death sentence commuted (with the ultimate aim of getting the conviction overturned) who was kidnapped in prison, and unfortunately lynched.
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