Black-Jewish Relations on Trial: Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South

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NOTES Since this text relies so heavily on original archival research, I have listed the relevant collections here, along with the abbreviations used for each in mynotes. While I have generally followed MLA style for parenthetical notes, I have always cited archival sources in endnotes. Archives (and Abbreviations for Citations) AHC Atlanta History Center—Leo Frank Collection (ms. number 91) BU Brandeis University—Leo Frank Collection, Special Collection Department, Brandeis UniversityLibraries EU Emory University—Special Collections, Robert W. Woodruff Library GDAH Georgia Department of Archives and History—John Marshall Slaton Collection (accession number 79-182) Preface 1. An anonymous poem written about Mary Phagan after the murder was fairly up-front about the choice of villains: "Now, while in that building, / Though virtuous and modest, too, / She wasbrutally murdered / Bythe Negro or the Jew." This is cited in Frey and Thompson-Frey (142). Other creative works (most notably FiddluY John Carson's songs) would be much less evenhanded, confidently assigning blame to Frank. 2. These privileges, obviously,included employing large numbers of young southerners at extremely lowwages. 137 138 Notes Chapter 1 1. See, for instance, the detailed information at www.peachstar.gatech.edu/ ga-stories/homepg.htm. 2. Eleanor Rivenburgh to LucilleFrank, 16Oct. 1915, in BU 1. 3. This isjust a slight overstatement. There are other sources—print and cyber— that continue to make hay out of the Frank case. I have decided not to give full citations for these. Jessie Daniels, in a fuller consideration of these materials, does offer listings. 4. H. T Williams to Governor John Slaton, 28 Apr. 1915, in BU Box2. 5. See MacLean for more on the relationship of labor and sexuality. Chapter 2 1. Walter White and others have also noted that the showing of a play based on Thomas Dixon's Clansman helped inflame bad feelings (Man 8; Williamson 174). For an evocative fictional rendering of the riot see also White's neglected novel Flight (esp. 65-66 and 72-76). 2. Quoted in the Denver Post, 17Aug. 1915, in GDAH Box 48a. 3. John Higham notes that in the late 1880s some seriousanti-Semitic demonstrations broke out in parts of the lower South "where Jewishsupply merchants werecommon " (92). On the complexities ofJewish life in the South, see Kaganoff and Urofsky, and Evans. If one were interested in exploring violence aimed at "new" immigrants in the South, it might be more productive to study, for example, the Italians ofLouisiana than the Jews of Georgia. 4. Reuben Arnold also made the comparison to Beilis in his appeal before Judge Leonard Roan for a new trial (10). 5. Leo Frank to Col. M. J. Yeomans, 9 July 1915, in AHC Box7. 6. The best scholarly example of this approach is in Diner. Anthologies edited by Hentoff and Salzman are also framed by similar assumptions. 7. For an instructive comparison, see two fine essayson Jack the Ripper, by Walkowitz and Oilman. Chapter 3 1. This is an overlybroad caricature of scapegoat theory, but reasonable facsimiles can be found in Dinnerstein, Golden, and Williamson. 2. At the trial Prosecutor Hugh Dorsey wasable to elicit the damaging evidence from Frank's mother that she and Frank's father lived off interest from investments. In response to this admission about Frank's father, Dorsey remarked, "Ah, he's a capitalist, is he?" (qtd. in Golden 153; see also Dinnerstein 33). 3. MacLean certainly understands the connection. She writes that because Jews were associated with "unproductive" finance capital, as well as with the vice trade, they Notes 139 were ripe as potential villains at this moment. Without going into too much detail, MacLean claims correctly that "fears about changing gender roles and sexual jealousies combined with class hostilities in the anti-Semitism of the Frank case" (492). 4. Louis Marshall of the American JewishCommittee was certainly aware of the dangers of any organizedJewish activity on Frank's behalf; as he put it, he thought it would be "most unfortunate if anything were done in this case from the standpoint of the Jews" (qtd. in Rosenstock 91). 5. One Christian newspaper worried over this strong support for Frank and wondered if"a new race problem israised by this case—that the Jew isprotected while the negro is made the scape-goat" (Lutheran Observer, 20 Aug. 1915: 6, in GDAH Box 45). 6. Herbert Lasher to Leo Frank, 5 Nov. 1914, in AHC Box 1. This type of...