The Leo Frank Case Reconsidered

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The Leo Frank Case Reconsidered: Gender and Sexual Politics in the Making of Reactionary Populism Author(s): Nancy MacLean Source: The Journal of American History, Vol. 78, No. 3 (Dec., 1991), pp. 917-948 Published by: Organization of American Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2078796 . Accessed: 14/09/2011 13:44

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http://www.jstor.org The Leo Frank Case Reconsidered: Gender and Sexual Politics in the Making of Reactionary Populism

Nancy MacLean

The trialand lynchingof Leo Frankhave long fascinated historians and popularau- diencesalike. AJewish, northern-bred factory supervisor, Frank was accused in 1913 ofthe murder of Mary Phagan, a thirteen-year-oldlocal white worker in hisemploy in Atlanta.The killingwas grisly; the morning after, Phagan's corpse was found in thefactory's basement mangled and cakedwith blood and grime.Within days, po- lice had arrestedFrank, and the lead prosecutor,Hugh Manson Dorsey,soon affirmedhis beliefin Frank'sguilt. Dorsey's certainty persisted throughout the sub- sequenttwo years of the case, despite other evidence pointing to thefactory's janitor, JimConley. A blackman witha priorrecord of arrests for theft and disorderlycon- duct,Conley might seem the logicaltarget in a societycommitted to whitesu- premacyand willingto lynchAfrican Americans on the slimmestpretext. Yet, for reasonsthat will becomeclearer in the courseof thisarticle, a curiousreversal of standardsouthern practice occurred. The prosecutor,the jury,and much of the publicnot only absolved a blacksuspect but in factrelied on his testimonyto con- demna wealthywhite man. As Phagan'sminister, who at firstbelieved Frank guilty but changedhis mindafter the verdict,mused in hindsight,it wasas if the death of a blackman "wouldbe poor atonementfor the lifeof thisinnocent little girl." Butin Frank,"a YankeeJew. .. herewould be a victimworthy to pay for the crime."' Fosteredby sensational press accounts, the case engagedpopular interest from theoutset. Some ten thousandpeople turnedout to pay homageto Phaganas her bodylay in state.Frank's trial, which consumed four months and culminatedin a convictionand deathsentence, absorbed more attention than any other in thestate's history.Over the nextyear and a half,his attorneysappealed the case all the way

NancyMacLean is assistantprofessor of historyat NorthwesternUniversity. Manypeople haveoffered helpful comments on variousversions of thisarticle. Without implicating them in theresult, I wouldlike to thankEdward Ayers, Leonard Dinnerstein, Maureen Fitzgerald, Joyce Follett, Jacquelyn Hall,Wally Hettle, Jackson Lears, Gerda Lerner, Alan Maass, Leisa Meyer, and David Thelen.I owespecial gratitude to Linda Gordonfor her careful readings, astute advice, and unflaggingencouragement.

1 L. 0. Bricker,"A GreatAmerican Tragedy," Shane Quarterly,4 (April1943), 90. In thisrare instance, racist beliefshelped persuade whites that the black suspect was innocent. Convinced that an illiterateAfrican American couldneither construct such elaborate accounts, nor adhere to themin theface of grueling cross-examination, nor employthe linguisticforms used in the murdernotes found by, Mary Phagan's body, many whites accepted his testimonyas to Frank'sguilt. See LeonardDinnerstein, The Leo FrankCase (New York,1968), 45-46, 53.

The Journalof AmericanHistory December1991 917 918 TheJournal of AmericanHistory December1991 throughthe United States Supreme Court, to no avail.When thelast rejection was handeddown in Aprilof 1915,they shifted to a newstrategy: a campaign for execu- tiveclemency. This effortinaugurated an impassionedbattle -involving hundreds of thousandsof people fromthe stateand the nation-over whetherthe Georgia PrisonCommission or thegovernor, John Marshall Slaton, should commute Frank's deathsentence. Ultimately, his supporters won. Citingevidence unavailable to the jurors,Slaton commuted the sentence to lifeimprisonment shortly before Frank was to hang.This act won the governoraccolades from some quartersbut producedin othersa furyso intensethat - as armedmasses of people surroundedhis home pledgingrevenge -he becamethe firststate executive in United Stateshistory to declaremartial law forhis ownprotection. Two months later, on August16, 1915, an assemblyof prominent male citizensfrom Mary Phagan's hometown kidnapped Frankfrom the stateprison farm, drove him acrossthe stateto the countyof her birth,and therecarried out thejury's sentence. Their act drewwidespread popular acclaim.2 That theFrank case arousedsuch interest among both contemporaries and later scholarsis understandable,for in it the centralconflicts of earlytwentieth-century southernhistory erupted. Some historians,for example, have pointed out thatthe systemof white supremacy and theprevalence of lynching in theNew Southencour- aged themobs who threatenedthe governor and murderedFrank. Others have em- phasizedthe anti-Semitism directed against Frank, which made this"an American Dreyfuscase." They have argued that this break in thegeneral pattern of lynching - the murdernot of a ruralAfrican American, but of a prominent,metropolitan white- can be explainedonly in lightof the social tensions unleashed by the growth ofindustry and citiesin theturn-of-the-century South. These circumstances made a Jewishemployer a morefitting scapegoat for disgruntled whites than the other leadingsuspect in the case, a blackworker. Moreover, in pittingthe old Populist leaderTom Watson against the rising urban Progressives who ralliedto Frank'sdefense,the case provideddramatic personae for deep-rooted political conflicts.3 Yet one aspectof theFrank case has neverreceived sustained attention: gender. Deepeningthe conflicts other historians have described, gender and sexualthemes saturatedthe outcry against Frank. Although he stoodtrial on thecharge of murder alone,the allegation that he had rapedMary Phagan became the centerpiece of the case againsthim. As we willsee, however, the facts were ambiguous. Clear evidence ofrape never emerged - butthere were indications that Phagan may have been sexuallyactive. Whatever the facts of herdeath, the striking point for our purposes was

2 For detailsof the case,see Dinnerstein,Leo FrankCase; and ClementCharlton Moseley, "The Case of Leo M. Frank,1913-1915," Georgia Historical Quarterly, 51 (March1967), 42-62. 3On theepisode's anti-Semitic content, against the backdrop of the industrialization of the South, see Dinner- stein,Leo FrankCase; and StevenHertzberg, Strangers within the Gate City:The Jews of Atlanta,1845-1915 (Philadelphia,1978), 202-15. On its connectionto the defeatedPopulist movement of the 1890s,see C. Vann Woodward,Tom Watson. Agrarian Rebel (New York,1938). On the responseof blacks,see EugeneLevy, "'Is the Jewa WhiteMan?': PressReaction to theLeo FrankCase, 1913-1915,"Phylon, 35 (June1974), 212-22. For popular treatments,see HarryLewis Golden, A LittleGirl Is Dead (New York,1965); and CharlesSamuels and Louise Samuels,Night Fell on Georgia(New York,1956). The Leo FrankCase Reconsidered 919

LEO FRANL. STUDY THE MOUTH. NOSE, AND AVERTED EYES

Photographof Leo Frank,possibly retouched, that appeared in Watson'sMagazine (March1915). CourtesyTom WatsonBrown, great-grandson of ThomasE. Wlatson. thedetermined refusal of wide sections of the state'snon-elite adult white popula- tionto countenance the latter possibility. Their staunch insistence that Phagan died topreserve her chastity evinced profound concern about changing relations between thesexes and generationsand about shiftingsexual mores among wage-earning women.4The outcryagainst commutation for Frank can only be understoodin light ofthese contested relations. But these,too, must be viewedin a widercontext, for

I'I describePhagan and her peers as "women"in defianceof theircontemporaries' habit of depictingsuch femalewage earners as "workinggirls" and referringto themby their given names. These diminutive labels resisted acknowledgingthe socialadulthood thrust upon suchyoung women, even as theyremained dependent on their parents.However much the labelersmay have wishedthat Phagan and herpeers enjoyed the shelterednaivetE evokedby the term girl, their employment and consequentexposure to a working-classsexual culture suggested otherwise.I hope the language employed here will foster respectful, rather than sentimental, approaches to histor- icalunderstanding of Phaganand her peers. 920 TheJournal of American History December1991 the furorover gender relations and sexualityfueled class hostilitiesand anti- Semitism. Indeed,the patterns revealed here have a largersignificance. The caseconstitutes a spectacularinstance of a patternof politicalmobilization best described as reactionarypopulism. At firstsight, the termappears an oxymoron.Most American historians,after all, associatepopulism with grass-rcots democratic mobilizations, reactionwith the elite opponents of such initiatives. In mostinstances, such associa- tionswork-but not in all. Mypurpose is to drawattention to suchexceptions: to momentsand movementsin whichthe anti-elitismcharacteristic of populism coexistswith, actually garners mass support for, a politicalagenda that enforces the subordinationof whole groups of people. The mobilizationagainst Leo Frankillus- tratedthis dynamic, but it was hardlyalone in Americanhistory. The Frankcase directlystimulated the establishmentof the second Ku Klux Klan, perhapsthe quintessentialexample of this phenomenon. Shortly after Frank's lynching, Watson advisedthat "another Ku Klux Klan may be organizedto restoreHOME RULE." It was.WilliamJ. Simmons unveiled the new order two months later at a ceremony thatpurportedly involved many lynchers of Leo Frank.From its base in Atlanta,the secondKlan soon spreadto all sectionsof thenation, with Watson's blessing. The reactionarypopulism promoted by the leadersof the second Klan, as by their predecessorsin the Frankcase, included hostilitytoward both big capital and working-classradicalism; extreme racism, nationalism, and religionas alternatives to classexplanations and strategies;and, theprimary focus of thisarticle, militant sexualconservatism. My contention is thatsince changing gender and generational relationscontributed so muchto theappeal ofreactionary populism, sexual conservatism,like class grievancesand racialantipathies, should be seen as one of its definingelements.5 The conceptof reactionary populism also helpsmake sense of theparticular fea- turesof the Leo Frankcase. First, it highlightsthe distinction between the elite fol- lowingof conventionalconservatism and the popular basis of the oppositionto Frank,which included farmers, small-town merchants and professionals,urban workers,and otherswho harboredwell-founded resentments against large capital and itspolitical representatives, whether liberal or conservative.Second, the depic- tion evokesboth the self-representationof Frank's opponents-who resisted class politicsand gatheredinstead under the mantle of "thepeople" and thedefensive, restorationistcharacter of their protest. In theend, they sought solutions not in rad-

5 TomWatson'sJeffersonian, Sept. 2, 1915,quoted in Woodward,Tom Watson, 446. See also Dinnerstein,Leo FrankCase, 149-50. On the second Klan's ideologyand practice,see NancyMacLean, "Behind the Mask of Chivalry:Gender, Race, and Classin theMaking of the Ku KluxKlan ofthe 1920sin Georgia"(Ph.D. diss.,Univer- sityof Wisconsin,Madison, 1989). On the Bostonantibusing movement as a case of "reactionarypopulism," see RonaldP. Formisano,Boston against Busing: Race, Class, andEthnicity in the1960s and 1970s(Chapel Hill, 1991), esp. 172-202.Formisano notes that among the opponentsof busing, "the alienated right most complained of was ... theright of parentalcontrol over their own children," a patternconsistent with the argument advanced here. Ibid., 171.Such an analysismight prove fruitful for some of the paradoxicalmovements of the interveningyears. See Alan Brinkley,Voices of Protest: Huey Long,Father Coughlin, and the GreatDepression (New York,1983); and Leo P. Ribuffo,The Old ChristianRight: The ProtestantFar Rightfrom the GreatDepression to the Cold War(Philadelphia, 1983). The Leo FrankCase Reconsidered 921 ical changenor even substantive reform, but ratherin anti-Semitismand murder. Afterdescribing the context of Mary Phagan's murder, this article briefly delineates the responsesof differentgroups to the trialand to the subsequentstruggle over commutation.It thenexamines the gender themes of theopposition to Frankand howthese contributed to thedynamic of reactionary populism, which would shape Georgiapolitics for years after the murdersof MaryPhagan and Leo Frank. Genderanalysis thus opens a newwindow on theFrank case and thesocial order thatproduced it. Throughthis window, we see moreclearly how changeand con- testation,not stasisand consensus,constituted the veryessence of earlytwentieth- centurysouthern history. Economic development acted as a solventon olderrela- tionsof power and authority-between men and womenand betweenparents and childrenas wellas betweenworkers and employersand blacksand whites.The disso- lutionof the older sexual order produced losses as wellas gains.The popularanxie- tiesand resentmentsthereby created proved multivalent; they made classhostilities at oncemore volatile and moreamenable to reactionaryresolution. To observethese operationsin the Frankcase is to gain insightinto the processesby which protean concernsabout the family and sexualitymay help tame and redirectpopular oppositionto a dominantsocial order.The inclusionof genderas a categoryof analysis is thusnot an optionalflourish, but a vitaltool to uncoverelements upon which bothmobilization and outcomehinged.

The settingfor the case was,appropriately enough, Atlanta, the showcasecity of the New South. Virtuallydestroyed during Gen. WilliamT. Sherman'smarch to the sea in 1864, by the turnof the centuryAtlanta had resurgedas a modern metropolis.From 1880 to 1910,the number of the city's residents more than quad- rupledto almost155,000. Atlanta's booming and relativelydiversified economy fueledthis growth. The value of its manufacturinggrew by almostninefold over theseyears, while the city's position as a majorrail center linking the Southeast with theNorth enhanced its leading role in trade,distribution, insurance, and banking. By 1910,approximately 28 percentof Atlanta's labor force was engaged in manufac- turingand mechanicalpursuits, 26 percentin commercialactivity.6 Youngwomen such as MaryPhagan played an importantrole in thisexpanding economy,which led theregion in theextent and varietyof women's labor force participation.The numberof femaleworkers aged sixteenand overin the city's manufacturingindustries doubled between1900 and 1919to morethan four thousand, while thousandsof othersstaffed its burgeoningwhite-collar and service sectors.Atlanta offered only the most accelerated example of developmentstaking place as legionsof youngwomen entered the region'swork force. More than seven in tenof the South'sfemale industrial workers were under the age ofnineteen, ac-

6 Hertzberg,Strangers within the Gate City,28, 98; Blaine A. Brownell,The UrbanEthos in the South, 1920-1930(Baton Rouge, 1975), 5, 11-17;Kenneth Coleman, ed., A Historyof Georgia(Athens, 1977), 233; ThomasM. Deaton, "Atlantaduring the ProgressiveEra" (Ph.D. diss.,University of Georgia,1969), 1-2, 15-18. 922 TheJournal of American History December1991 cordingto a 1907United States Senate study of working women. Of the southern familiesincluded in the study,94.5 percentof thosewith daughters aged sixteen or olderhad at leastone in the laborforce. That the earningsof daughtersmade up fromone-quarter to two-fifthsof totalhousehold income indicates the extent oftheir families' reliance on theircontributions. The spreadof youthful female wage earningbroadened the ranks of those who might find personal meaning in Phagan's fate.7 The releaseof daughtersfrom the confininghousehold economy of the rural Southsignified a wider transformation. The relativedecline of the agrarian economy threwolder relations of poweropen to questionand stimulatedorganizing by di- versegroups with rival visions for the state's future. In the yearsafter its establish- mentin 1891,for example, the Atlanta Federation of Trades assumed an activerole in cityand statepolitics, backing labor candidates for office and proposinglegisla- tionto limitexploitation, promote the health and welfareof working people, and enhancepopular control over public institutions.8Such effortsunnerved Atlanta's risingurban business elite, who after 1901 sought to centralizepower and to impose theirown concepts of order on thetumultuous, expanding city. Their efforts to sup- plantelective municipal offices with appointive boards in 1911and again in 1913 met withstiff opposition from trade unionists and working-classvoters, forcing compromisesthat satisfied no one. Such conflictsinfluenced both groups' percep- tionsof the Frank case: workers viewed the mobilization to overthrowhis conviction as yetmore evidence of the rulingclass's contempt for democracy; elites read the clamorfor his executionas confirmationof the unrulinessof the lowerclasses and of the need to controlthem with a firmhand.9 In additionto classdivisions inside Atlanta, tensions between its eliteand the agrarianforces that had once dominatedthe state also shapedresponses to thecase. Althoughthree-quarters ofGeorgia's population was still rural in 1910,that margin slippedrapidly as the state'surban population grew by 400 percentfrom 1880 to 1920. Atlanta'snumerical growth augmented the powerof its businessand civic elite,whose Progressive vision of an active,development-promoting central state was anathemato the landed classes.Indeed, in the yearspreceding Phagan's death, Georgia'stown and countryinterests had clashedrepeatedly over such issues as the

7 JuliaKirk Blackwelder, "Mop and Typewriter:Women's Work in EarlyTwentieth-Century Atlanta," Atlanta HistoricalJournal,27 (Fall 1983),21; U.S. Departmentof Commerce,Bureau of the Census,Fourteenth Census of the UnitedStates Taken in the Year1920, vol IX: Manufactures,1919: Reports for States(Washington, 1923), 268-69; U.S. Departmentof Labor,Bureau of Labor Statistics,Bulletin 175, Summaryof Report on Condition of Womanand Child WageEarners in the UnitedStates (Washington, 1916), 16-17,19-20. 8 Foran outstandingperception of thetransformation of the region,see WilliamJ. Robertson,The Changing South (New York,1927). Forsuch perceptionsin Georgia,see StevenWayne Wrigley, "The Triumphof Provin- cialism:Public Life in Georgia,1898-1917" (Ph.D. diss.,Northwestern University, 1986), esp. 30-40. On laborre- sponseto thechange, see MercerGriffin Evans, "The Historyof OrganizedLabor in Georgia"(Ph.D. diss.,Univer- sityof Chicago,1929). 9 Deaton, "Atlantaduring the ProgressiveEra," 386, 399; FranklinM. Garrett,Atlanta and Environs:A Chronicleof its People and Events(3 vols.,New York,1954), II, 602, 611; EugeneJ. Watts,The Social Bases of CityPolitics: Atlanta, 1865-1903 (Westport, 1978), 21; Evans,"History of OrganizedLabor in Georgia,"276. On thecoming of age of Atlanta's"commercial-civic elite" and theirefforts to tamethe disruptiveforces of metropolitan life,see Brownell,Urban Ethos in the South. The Leo FrankCase Reconsidered 923 regionalapportionment of taxesand legislativerepresentation. In 1908, forexample,farm representatives Tom Watsonand JosephMackey Brown attacked the Progressivegovernor Hoke Smithfor his effortsto overturnan archaiccounty-unit votingsystem that favored rural areas. The twolater vilified Governor Slaton for his rolein the enactmentin 1913of a rural-urbantax equalizationmeasure perceived as a "deliberateattack on landowners."These prior disputes fed into the Frank case, as Watsonand Brownassumed leadership of the anti-Frank forces while Smith and Slatoncame to advocatecommutations In thishighly contentious milieu, MaryPhagan became a symbolcapable of unifyinggroups with a widevariety of grievances. In manyways she wasperfect for the role in whichFrank's opponents cast her.Just approaching her fourteenth birthdaywhen she was murdered,Phagan was describedby her motheras "very pretty"with "dimples in hercheeks."" And indeed,her widely publicized picture depictedan attractive,engaging young woman, whose appearancecontrasted so starklywith her brutal fate that people were moved to outrage."The killingof Mary Phaganwas horrible," one Athens,Georgia, woman declared to herbrother. "I hope the rightman will be foundand not hung or killedbut torturedto death.")12 While Phagan'sdeath produced almost universal horror, different details of her shortlife appealed to differentaudiences. The descendantof an establishedPied- montfarm family that had lostits land and been reducedfirst to tenancyand then to wagelabor, she emblemizedthe plightof ruralGeorgians.13 Having started factorywork at a veryyoung age to help supporther widowed mother and fivesiblings, Phagan also personifiedthe bitterdilemma of the region'semerging industrial proletariat,forced to relyon children'swages to make ends meet. Her reported membershipin the FirstChristian Bible Schooland herdestination the dayof the murder,the annual Confederate Memorial Day parade,endeared her as wellto rural conservativesusually unsympathetic to landlessfarmers or organized labor. Indeed, farmowners vexed over the flight of their tenants might find in Phagan'sfate ammu- nitionfor efforts to dissuadewould-be migrants to the city.14Yet, not everyoneral- lied aroundPhagan. Blacks,Jews, and the urban,white, gentile elite reactedto

10 Wrigley,"Triumph of Provincialism,"31, 40 (on population),230. See also ibid, 107, 122, 178, 212-17, 232-35, 250. 11 Briefof Evidenceat 1, Leo M. Frankv. State of Georgia,Fulton County Superior Court at theJuly Term, 1913,Atlanta Miscellany (Special Collections Department, Robert W. WoodruffLibrary, Emory University, Atlanta, Ga.). The originaltrial transcript has not survived,but boththe prosecutionand the defenseaccepted the Brief of Evidenceas a correctaccount and reliedon it in subsequentappeals, beginningwith the SupremeCourt of Georgia,Fall Term,1913. See Dinnerstein,Leo FrankCase, 222-23. 12 HelenNewton to EdwinD. Newton,May 2, 1913,folder 2, box 5, Carlton-Newton-MellCollection (Special CollectionsDepartment, University of GeorgiaLibraries, Athens). 13 MaryPhagan's family's roots in Cobb Countywere emphasized in a petitionagainst commutation from a massmeeting there to thegovernor. See "Hearingbefore Gov. John M. Slatonre: Commutationof the Death Sen- tenceof Leo Frank,Atlanta, Ga., June 12-16,1915," p. 41, AtlantaMiscellany. See also MoultrieM. Sessionsto J. H. Hurford,May 17, 1915,folder 22, box 35, JohnMarshall Slaton Collection (Manuscripts Section, Georgia Departmentof Archivesand History,Atlanta). In 1910,rural Georgians' per capitawealth of $195 was less than halfthat of urban Georgians.Wrigley, "Triumph of Provincialism,"39-40. 14 ThomasE. Watson,"The OfficialRecord in the Case of Leo Frank,a JewPervert," Watson's Magazine, 21 (Sept. 1915),256. Forfarmers' complaints about the rural labor shortage, see Wrigley,"Triumph of Provincialism," 128-30, 249-51. 924 The Journal of American History December1991

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MaryPhagan, rendered as a Gibson girlin one of the firstlikenesses the public saw afterher death. A contrastwith the photo fromwhich this picture was made makesthe deliberatestylization clear (see facingpage). FromAtlanta Georgian, April 28, 1913,p. 1. otheraspects of the case ofmore direct concern to them.For blacks that aspect was racism,for Jews anti-Semitism, and forthe urbanwhite elite potential threats to theirclass power. The positionof African Americans in relationto thecase was difficult. Although theblack press later condemned Frank's lynching as theydid all lynching,the evolu- tionof the case led manyin the blackcommunity to the side of Frank'saccusers. Severalblack observers voiced resentment at theoutpouring of sympathyfor him, in sharpcontrast with ongoing white indifference to theoutrages suffered routinely byAfrican Americans. What provedmost decisive in shapingblacks' attitudes towardthe case was the strategyof Frank'sdefense: a virulentracist offense against theonly other suspect, the janitorJim Conley. Many elite supporters of commuta- The Leo FrankCase Reconsidered 925

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Unembellishedfamily photo of Mary Phagan, as it appearedin Watson'sMagazine (March1915). CourtesyTom WatsonBrown, great-grandson of ThomasE. Watson.

tionfor Frank expressed outrage that a whiteemployer was indicted,rather than a blackworker with a criminalrecord, and shockthat their appeals to whitesu- premacyfailed to rallythe juryor the public.When Frank'sattorneys based their caseon the most vicious antiblack stereotypes of the dayand on outspokenappeals towhite solidarity, blacks rallied around Conley for the same reasonsthat Jews ral- liedaround Frank. Thus, whereas gentile whites split on classlines in thecase, blacks andJews responded in a cross-classmanner to perceivedcross-class threats."5

15 On blacksand theFrank case, see EugeneLevy, "'Is theJew a WhiteMan?"' See also Hertzberg,Strangers Whimthe Gate City, 207-8. Forexamples of the racismof Frank'sdefense, see ReubenArnold, The Tria ofLeo nhi:Reuben Arnold's Address to the Courton His Behalf ed. AlvinV. Sellers(Baxley, 1915), 51-52, 64, 67; "Heringbefore Gov. John M. Slaton,"141-43; C. P. Connolly,The Truthabout theFrank Case (New York,1915), 926 TheJournal of AmericanHistory December1991

It was not onlyJews who supportedLeo Frank,however. Both in Georgiaand nationwide,the gentile urban elite in generaland itsProgressive wing in particular espoused clemencyfor Frank.The supporthe garneredfrom leading Georgia Progressivesis the morenotable since some had earliercompaigned against child labor.That they came to theaid ofone ofits beneficiaries reflects in partthe elitist, social-controlimpulse some historianshave described as characteristicof southern Progressivism.16In fact, the concern of elites about the Frank case reflected profound fearsabout the stabilityof the social orderover which they presided. Time and again,they complained about the spreadof "anarchy"and "mob rule"as revealed in thecase. "Classhatred was played on" bythe prosecutors, Frank's attorney complained in court."They played on the enmitythe poor feelagainst the wealthy" and encouraged"discontent." A prominentProgressive supporter of Frank, the Rev- erendC. B. Wilmer,observed that "class prejudice" "was perfectly obvious" at every stagein the case and warnedof the dangersof panderingto it.17 Wilmer'sfear reflected his constituency's own class prejudice, which became more candidas thecase progressed.In truepatrician style, Franks' supporters repeatedly assertedthat "the best people" were on hisside. Oftentheir elitism was less subtle. Frank'sattorney Reuben Arnold,for example, described those who believedhis clientguilty as "ignorantpeople," referred to thecourtroom audience as "thatgang ofwolves" and "a viciousmob," and characterizeda white worker who had testified againstFrank as "theugliest, dirtiest reptile . . . [whose]habitat was in the filth." So obliviouswere Frank's backers to the sentimentsof thosebeneath them in the socialorder that they hired WilliamJ. Burns, the most notorious union-busting pri-

88, 93; TheFrank Case: InsideStory of Georgia'sGreatest Murder Mystery (Atlanta, 1913), 132. Frank'sopponents also exhibitedracism against blacks, but it playeda rolesubordinate to theother issues they raised. The response ofJews to the anti-Semitismdirected against Frank has been analyzedwell byothers, including Dinnerstein, Leo FrankCase; Golden, A LittleGirl Is Dead; and Hertzberg,Strangers within the Gate City. 16 Gentileurban support was evidenced by public statements and editorialsin theleading dailies and period- icalsof Georgia and thenation and bymyriad letters and petitionsfrom prominent citizens in supportof commutation. Fora listof Franksupporters in Georgia,see "GeorgiaLetters and Petitionsfor Commutation of Sentence forLeo M. Frankto Life Imprisonment," folder 6, box 5, SlatonCollection. On theconservatism, racism, and elitism of southernProgressivism, see J. MorganKousser, The Shapingof SouthernPolitics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishmentof the One-PartySouth, 1880-1910 (New Haven, 1974); and JohnDittmer, Black Georgiain the ProgressiveEra (Urbana, 1977). The hallmarksof thisambivalent tradition often appeared in the Frankcase, as whenAugusta Chronicle editor Thomas Loyless, praised by liberals for denouncing the lynchingof Frank,used race-baitingto browbeatFrank's opponents. See, forexample, Augusta Chronicle, Sept. 27, 1915,4. Fora more sympatheticappraisal, see DeweyW. Grantham,Southern Progressivism: The Reconciliation ofProgress and Tradi- tion (Knoxville,1983). 17 Arnold,Trial of Leo Frank,ed. Sellers,3 5. Similarly,he chargedthe statewith using as witnesses,"the dis- chargedemployee, the men and womenwho hated wealth and waswilling to defeatit in thespirit of the anarchist." AtlantaConstitution, Oct. 26, 1913,reel 2822, Leo FrankCollection (AmericanJewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio). Therewere also privatewarnings that Frank's execution "through mob demand"would create uncertainty in the popularmind about thejudicial process. A. D. Laskerto Jacob Billikopf, Dec. 28, 1914,reel 1069,ibid. See also LouisMarshall to HerbertHaas, Dec. 24, 1914,ibid. ForC. B. Wilmer'sstatement, see "Hearingbefore Gov. John Slaton,"75. The alarmof elitesbecame most prominent after the nearriots that followed Slaton's commutation ofFrank's sentence and afterthe lynching,as hundredsof lettersin the summerand fallof 1915to theAugusta Chroniclecommending its stand against "Watsonism" show. The patternparallels that found by David L. Carlton: townelites' concerns about lynching"generally had lessto do witha concernfor social justice than with fears for social stability."David L. Carlton,Mill and Townin South Carolina,1880-1920 (Baton Rouge, 1982), 246. The Leo FrankCase Reconsidered 927 vatedetective in thecountry, to discreditthe case againsttheir client. Burns barely escaped alivefrom his inquiriesin Phagan'shometown of Marietta.18 That debaclewas but one indicatorof how actions by representatives ofthe em- ployingclass in thecase escalated working people's hostility.19 Among Georgia trade unionists,the murderhad heightenedthe sense of urgencyabout endingchild labor.They expressed revulsion at the waythe city'smainstream press sensational- ized the dead girl'smiserable fate while ignoring the politicaleconomy that sent her,like thousands of otheryouths, out to workin the firstplace. "MaryPhagan," proclaimedthe Atlanta Journal of Labor, was "a martyrto the greedfor gain" in Americansociety, "which sees in girlsand childrenmerely a sourceof exploitation in theshape ofcheap laborthat more money may be made or theproduct may be disposedat a cheaperprice." The unionists'anger was understandable.For almost twodecades, the Atlanta Federation of Trades and the GeorgiaFederation of Labor had made abolitionof child labor their preeminent political demand. Yet, with the state'splanters and industrialistssolidly arrayed against them and withscarcely any supportfrom other quarters, they could not secureeven the miserablestandards achievedin othersouthern textile states. Indeed, at the time of MaryPhagan's death,Georgia alone amongthe statesallowed factory owners to hireten-year-old children-and to workthem eleven-hour days.20 If otherelements of the Frankcase determinedthe reactionsof AfricanAmeri- cans and the urbanelite, its genderthemes appealed to an audiencemuch wider thanthe ranksof wageearners, a classstill in the processof formationand deeply tiedto thecountryside. Indeed, although most historians of the casehave assumed thaturban workers constituted most of the oppositionto Frank,research on those who signedpetitions against commutation reveals a diversecoalition. Opposition camefrom all areasof thestate, rural black belt as wellas industrialPiedmont. Of the 36 percentof signerswhose occupationscould be determined,the over- whelmingmajority were landholding farmers, followed by rentingfarmers, merchants,and lower-levelwhite-collar workers. The data no doubt understateindus- trialworkers and landlessfarmers, who were more likely to be mobileor uncounted in thecensus. Nevertheless, they show that the case had meaningnot only, perhaps

18 For a referenceto the "bestpeople," see ForsythAdvertiser, July 9, 1915,reel 2824, FrankCollection. For a listingof Frank's supporters headed "NamesThat Count for Much," see Augusta Chronicle, Dec. 18, 1915,supple- ment,pp. 29-30. Arnold,Trial of Leo Frank,ed. Sellers,12, 21, 30, 42-43. See also the slursin Connolly,Truth about theFrank Case, 18,22, 23, 30. The prosecutorhad a fieldday with this elitism, which enabled him to pose as the defenderof the witnesses'reputations, "though they may be workinggirls." Argument of Hugh M. Dorsey, Solicitor-General,at the TrialofLeo M. Frank(Macon, 1914),21-22. On theepisode of WilliamJ. Burns, see Din- nerstein,Leo FrankCase, 100-101;Jacquelyn D. Hall, "Secrets:Reading the FultonBag and CottonMill Spy Reports,"12, paper deliveredat the Seminaron Race, Class, and Gender in SouthernHistory, University of California,San Diego,June 22-24, 1989 (in NancyMacLean's possession). 19 InJuly1913 one ofthe most active union locals in Atlantaresolved that the coverage of the case in theAtlanta presshad led its membersto "look withsuspicion . . . upon so-calledjournalism . .. whereverthe lives,liberty, propertyor interestsof industrialworkers are involved."Atlanta Journal of Labor Aug. 1, 1913,p. 6. A northern correspondentlater attributed Frank's lynching in partto theresentment against class bias in the courtsystem that surfacedearly in the case "amongthe workingclasses." New YorkTimes, Aug. 20, 1915,p. 5. 20 AtlantaJournalof Labor) May 2, 1913,p. 4; Evans,"History of Organized Labor in Georgia,"229; Elizabeth H. Davidson,Child Labor Legislation in the SouthernTextile States (Chapel Hill, 1939), 69-88, 194-214;A. J. McKelway,"Child Labor in Georgia,"Child Labor Bulletin,2 (Aug. 1913),54-5 5. 928 TheJournal of AmericanHistory December1991 not evenprimarily, for the dispossessedbut also,perhaps especially, for people of small property.And whetherthey were farmers,shopkeepers, clerks, or wage earners,those most concerned with the genderand sexualissues of the Frankcase weregentile whites who had, or could anticipatehaving, family ties to female workers.Since relatively few immigrants had settledin the South,the familiesof suchworking women made up an unusuallyhomogeneous group. Most were native southerners,and ifthey did not workthe land, theirparents or grandparentshad. Throughtheir letters about the Frank case to thegovernor, the Georgia Prison Com- mission,and thepress, their testimony in court,and theircollective public actions, thesepeople lefta recordof their perceptions of gender, class, and statepower. The concernsrevealed therein were distinct from those of eitherblacks, Jews, or the whiteelite.21 First,there were the "workinggirls" themselves. We can sensethe vulnerability theyfelt - and perhapstheir anger, too - in thefear and nervousnessover Phagan's murderthat so disruptedthe factorythat it had to be shutdown for the week.In the trial,a fewfemale employees took the unpopularstep of vouching for Frank's characterfrom the stand. But a scoreof their peers used thetrial as an opportunity to ventgrievances and settleold scoresby testifying against their former manager.22 Somewomen and children,presumably from the working and lowermiddle classes, participatedin the demonstrationsagainst commutation,which pitted them againstthe prominent women who came to Frank'sdefense. By and large,however, women'svoices were few in thepublic chorus raised against Frank. Perhaps hesitant to makedemands on thestate in theirown right, they wrote only a handfulof the myriadletters against him and rarelysigned the manypetitions.23

21 Fora portrayalof Frank's opponents as ignorantand fanaticalworkers, see Dinnerstein,Leo FrankCase; and LeonardDinnerstein, "Atlanta in the ProgressiveEra: A DreyfusAffair in Georgia,"in TheAge ofIndustrialism in America,ed. FredericCopleJaher (New York, 1968), 127-59.The generalizationin thetext is basedon informa- tionin the 1910manuscript census population schedules about signersof petitions against commutation (now in theSlaton Collection) from the following Georgia counties: Cherokee, Emanuel, Franklin, Paulding, Polk, Worth. ManuscriptCensus Records, Georgia, Thirteenth Census of the UnitedStates, 1910, Records of theBureau of the Census,RG29, microfilm T624, reels179, 186, 189, 206-7, 207-8, 219.Of the206 of566 signerswhose occupations could be determined,the breakdown was: landowning farmers or laborerson family-ownedfarms (74); merchants (38); tenantfarmers (30); lower-levelwhite-collar workers (20); skilledworkers (14); unskilledworkers (12); professionals(8); high white-collarworkers (2). Incompletesamples produced roughly similar profiles in De Kalb, Douglas,Lincoln, Oglethorpe, and Tiftcounties. Ibid., reels184, 183,199, 206, 216.By 1910only 2% ofthe popu- lationin the elevenformer Confederate states was foreign-born,a smaller proportion than in 1865. RowlandT. Berthoff,"Southern Attitudes toward Immigration, 1865-1914,"JournalofSouthern History, 17 (Feb. 1951),342. 22 "Everybodywas excitedthat morning after Mary Phagan was killed,"one of thefactory's managers testified. "Lookedlike everybody was worried. . . . The wholefactory was wroughtup. I couldn'thardly keep anybodyat work... forI couldn'tget any work out ofthem." Brief of Evidence at 39,Leo M. Frankv. Stateof Georgia. Frank's attorneymaintained that the "littlegirls" who testified that Frank had gone intothe dressingroom with a female supervisor,presumably for immoral purposes, had done so outof spite because the woman had firedthem. Arnold, Trialof Leo Frank,ed. Sellers,35. 23 Forglimpses of women's participation on bothsides, see AugustaChronicle, June 23, 1915,p. 1; American Israelite,March 26, 1914,reel 2822, Frankcollection; Nathaniel E. Harris,Autobiography (Macon, 1925),361. Al- mostall thewomen who wrote letters against commutation did so as mothersof femaleworkers. See Mrs.Henry L. Ozburnto John M. Slaton,June 22, [1915],reel 2, Leo FrankCorrespondence (Special Collections,Brandeis UniversityLibrary, Waltham, Mass.); "A Mother"to Mr.Davidson, n.d., folder2, box 35, Slaton Collection;"A Mother"to Slaton,Nov. 23, 1914,folder 1, box 35, ibid. Likewise,Esther Gerald implored Slaton to judge Frank "as if it was one of yourown Daughters." Esther Gerald to Slaton,May 26, 1915,folder 10, box 45, ibid. A rare The Leo FrankCase Reconsidered 929

The relativesilence of women,particularly the youngwomen presumably most directlytouched by Phagan's murder, provides a clue to the natureof the uproar overthe case. The compellingissues at stakeinvolved not simply female victimiza- tionin a staticsense, but shiftsin thepower different groups of men wieldedover youngwomen in thenew circumstances created by their employment. Among older maleopponents of Frank, there was, mingled with evident love and concernfor their daughters'welfare, real anger at havinglost control of them. In hisagitation against Frank,Tom Watson spoke of female employees as beingin the"possession" of their bosses,implicitly equating access to women'slabor with ownership of their persons. Somemale peers of working women were likewise inclined to viewthem as property, albeitof a differentkind. This sense of proprietorship was apparent in thecommon ritualamong young men in southernfactory neighborhoods of "rocking"or beating up wealthieroutsiders who cameto poach "their"women. Antipathy toward Frank thusfed on earlierrivalries among men of differentclasses over access to working- classwomen.24 Indeed,paternalistic outlooks dominated the campaignagainst Frank. The cir- cularfor a mass meetingto oppose commutationbilled the eventas "a citizen's meetingin the interestof our mothers,sisters, and daughters,"presuming an au- dienceof outragedmen. One man who warnedthe governornot to commutethe sentenceinvoked "the citizens of Ga. whohave girls" as a distinctpolitical constituency,announcing that "the parents of girls are provoked."25 These people identified withthe victim's family. They implored Slaton, as one forty-nine-year-oldfarm fa- therput it, to "thinkof MaryPhagan and herpeople." "Suppose you had a little girlmurdered by such a fiend,"another man demanded.He urgedthe governor to provehimself "a friendand protectorto theLittle girls of Georgia"by refusing to "let moneyor anythingoffered defeat Justice." These men beggedthe governorto let the sentencestand, since, according to one, "ourwives and daughter[s]are at stake."26

exceptionto thepublic silence of young female workers described herself as "a poorworking girl" when she wrote to condemnthe commutation."A Friendof theJust," to Slaton,June 22, 1915,reel 2, FrankCorrespondence. 24 Watson,"Official Record," 284. See DoloresJaniewski,SisterhoodDenied: Race, Gender and Classin a New SouthCommunity (Philadelphia, 1985), 128;Jacquelyn Dowd Hall,James Leloudis, Robert Korstad, Mary Murphy, Lu AnnJones,and ChristopherB. Daly,Like a Family:The Making of a SouthernCotton Mill World(ChapelHill, 1987), 223-24. On classrivalries among southern men overwomen, see also VictoriaByerly, Hard TimesCotton Mill Girls:Personal Histories of WomanhoodandPovertyin theSouth (Ithaca, 1986), 114; and therichly evocative shortstory "The Old Forest,"in PeterTaylor, The Old Forestand OtherStories (Garden City, 1985). 25 On the circular,see AugustaChronicle, June 11, 1915,p. 1. A. J. Cash to Slaton,June 14, 1915,folder 4, box 45, SlatonCollection. For explicitappeals to readers'concerns for their daughters' sexual vulnerability, see also ThomasE. Watson,"The CelebratedCase ofthe State of Georgia vs. Leo Frank,"Watson's Magazine, 21 (Aug. 1915),196, 230. One ofthe original jurors in thecase maintained that Slaton's decision to commutehad imperiled the"daughters, wives, sisters and mothers"of Georgia. New YorkTimes, June 2 5, 1915,reel 282 2, FrankCollection. 26 See, forexample, W. S. Lancasterto Slaton,Dec. 29, 1914,folder 10, box 45, SlatonCollection; T. B. Hogan to Slaton,folder 1, box 35, ibid; R. J. Smithto "Prisoncommissioners," April 29, 1915,folder 1, box 35, ibid; W. L. Dubberlyto Slaton,folder 1, box 35, ibid.; Cash to Slaton,June 14, 1915,folder 4, box 45, ibid.;J. G. Scogginsto Slaton,June 5, 1915,folder 10, box 45, ibid; J. D. Long to Slaton,May 31, 1915,folder 10, box 45 ibid.;J. D. Chasonto Slaton,May 31, 1915,folder 10, box 45, ibid; J. E. Stembridgeto Slaton,June 21, 1915, folder4, box45, ibid; ThomasN. Smoketo Slaton,folder 1, box 35, ibid; Donald Clarkto Slaton,May 25, 1915, folder10, box 45, ibid; Good Hope Local Union 593 to Slaton,folder 1, box 35, ibid; J. H. Baxerto Slaton, 930 TheJournal of AmericanHistory December1991

Some spokeas parentswho had entrustedtheir children to employers'custody in exchangefor the wagesthat their labor could bring.They now feltfurious at Frank'salleged betrayal of that trust. "A littlegirl of tender years," fumed Churchill P. Goree,"attacked and murderedby the man to whomshe had a perfectright to lookfor protection." Whereas these fathers saw their own paternalism as benevolent and protective,they saw that of theirdaughters' employers as exploitativeand deeplyresented it. Indeed,their inability to protecttheir daughters signaled their ownloss of power, authority, and statusin theNew South,since dominion over one's dependentswas the most basic prerequisite of male independenceand honorin the yeomanworld from which their culture derived.27 Frank'salleged use ofhis class power to gainsexual access to womenin hisemploy furtherinfuriated them. It added humiliationand guilt to theirloss of power. Fathersfamiliar with factories must have knownthat male supervisoryemployees coulduse theircontrol of job assignmentsto pressurefemale subordinates into dates and sexualfavors. "The factorywas a greatplace fora man withlust and without conscience,"one of theprosecuting attorneys reminded the jury. Few needed to be told.One femalepetitioner for Frank, however, who had taughtamong mill workers foreighteen years, turned this common sense to unorthodoxends. She urgedthe governorto commuteFrank's sentence -reasoning thatif he had assaultedMary, "themill boys would have known it to a man, and lynchedhim beforehe reached jail." "Theyhave strong class feeling," she explained,"and I knowthe bitterresent- mentthey feel towards the 'super'who abuses his positionin regardto the mill woman."Indeed, in theview of one enragedwriter, Frank was a "lowskunk white liveredhell hound defilerand murdererof infants."28 Suchanxieties about the sexual prerogatives of class power were rife, in thecourt- roomand out. MaryPhagan "died," the lead prosecutortold thejury, "because she wouldn'tyield her virtue to thedemands of her superintendent." Another man later drewout the logicof thisallegation. Commutation of Frank'ssentence, he maintained, would send the "brutes . . . who commit rape on poor girls" the message "thatmoney can do anything."Sexual control of men overwomen and of parents overdaughters thus became the object of class conflict in thecase, as non-elitewhite

May 18, 1915,folder 10, box 45, ibid.; Petitionfrom Omega, Georgia, to Slaton,n.d., folder 1, box 35, ibid.; Peti- tionfrom Garfield, Georgia, to Slaton,May 28, 1915,folder 10, box 45, ibid. See alsoJno.H. Wellingtonto Slaton, June24, 1915,reel 2, FrankCorrespondence; W. T. Parrottto Slaton,n.d., reel 2, ibid.; "A Georgian"to Slaton, June 23, 1915,reel 2, ibid 27 ChurchillP. Goreeto Slaton,June 1, 1915,folder 10, box 45, SlatonCollection. See also "A mother"to Mr. Davidson,n.d., folder 2, box 35, ibid.; Mrs.H. Boltonto PrisonCommissioners, May 31, 1915,folder 10, box 45, ibid Fora pathbreakingstudy of the gender inequality at theheart of the household economy and politicalculture ofthe antebellumyeomanry, see StephanieMcCurry, "Defense of Their World: Gender, Class, and theYeomanry of the SouthCarolina Low Country,1820-1860" (Ph.D. diss.,State University of New York,Binghamton, 1988). Othersuggestive accounts include Steven Hahn, "Honorand Patriarchyin the Old South,"American Quarterly, 36 (Spring1984), 145-5 3; and EdwardL. Ayers,Vengeance andJustice: Crime andPunishment in theNineteenth- CenturyAmerican South (New York,1984), 10-29, 274-75. 28 FrankA. Hooper,quoted in FrankCase, 109. On sexualharassment in the mills,see Byerly,Hard Times CottonMill Girls,121; and Hall et al., Likea Family,253, 314-15.Louise A. Lane to Slaton,May 15, 1915,folder 8, box 35, SlatonCollection. This teacherwas one of the fewprocommutation writers who empathizedwith the workers."A Georgian"to Slaton,June 23, 1915,reel 2, FrankCorrespondence. TheLeo FrankCase Reconsidered 931 menacted out theiranger at theirinability to safeguardthe women of their families and classfrom the predationsof the richerand morepowerful.29 The extraordinarydepth of thatanger may reflect the factthat the Frankcase came on theheels of a massiveevangelical campaign against "white slavery." Con- ductedby the Men and ReligionForward movement, the campaign aimed to abolish thecity's protected vice district. One ofthe leaders of the crusade was Mary Phagan's own minister,the ReverendL. 0. Bricker.In mass meetings,public visitsto the brotheldistrict by ministers and theirparishioners, and a dramaticseries of more thantwo hundred newspaper advertisements that ran regularly between 1912 and 1915,the campaign drove home the message that Atlanta's widespread child prosti- tutionindustry was the awfulfruit of the low wages paid workinggirls. Promoting an imageof prostitutesas naivevictims of cunningmen, the reformersimplored adultsto act on behalfof "the fallengirls in theirvirtual slavery."30 The trialitself aggravated concerns about femaleindustrial employment. Tes- timonyabout working conditions in theNational Pencil Factory-the workplace of Frankand Phaganand thesite of the crime -revealed pitifullylow pay and precar- ious employment.More striking, though, were the casual but repeatedreferences to the factory'sexcruciating filth. Witness after witness described floors that had gone unwashedfor years, now steepednot onlyin oil and dirtbut also in blood fromthe accidents that took place "almostevery two weeks," as whenthe "girls ... mashtheir fingers on the machines"or whena machinist"had his head bursted open."31Few could remain dispassionate while imagining their own children in this environment. Othertestimony revealed working conditions that degraded women specifically. Operativesdescribed other, numerous blood stainsnear the dressingrooms from "girlswhose sickness was upon them."Management assertions that such stains were common "in establishmentswhere a large numberof ladies work"no doubt inflamedthe anger theysought to allay. Witnessesalso reportedthat only a makeshiftdivider separated the women's dressing room from the men's. Such condi- tionsoutraged those schooled in themyth that southern gender conventions applied to all whitewomen. Even more appallingto them was supervisors'practice of

29 Argumentof Hugh M. Dorsey,145. See also MinnieWeldon to editor,Watson's Magazine, 21 (Dec. 1915), 108-9. W. R. Pearsonto Slaton,May 27, 1915,folder 10, box 45, SlatonCollection. 30 "AnAdvertising Campaign against Segregated Vice," American City, 9 (July1913), 4; "How AtlantaCleaned Up,"Literary Digest, May 3, 1913,pp. 1012-13.On therole of L. 0. Brickerand thecampaign, see HarryG. Lefever, "Prostitution,Politics, and Religion:The Crusadeagainst Vice in Atlantain 1912,"Atlanta HistoricalJournal, 24 (Spring1980), 7-29. Bricker'srelationship to Phaganappears in Bricker,"Great American Tragedy." The Atlanta campaigncoincided with the peak ofnationwide agitation over "white slavery." On thewider panic's roots in concernsabout changinggender roles among female wage earners, see Joanne Meyerowitz, Women Adrift. Indepen- dent Wage-Earnersin Chicago,1880-1930 (Chicago, 1988), esp. 61, 64. See also Egal Feldman,"Prostitution, the AlienWoman, and the ProgressiveImagination, 1900-1915," American Quarterly, 19 (Summer1967), 192-206. 31 Briefof Evidence at 16, 30, 77, 80, 105-7, 119, 131,Leo M. Frankv. Stateof Georgia.Of southernworking womenover the age ofsixteen, 68% earnedunder six dollars a weekin 1907,92.5% undereight dollars. Younger workers,such as Phagan,earned considerably less. U.S. Dept. ofLabor, Summary of the Report, 22; Deaton, "At- lanta duringthe ProgressiveEra," 154. 932 TheJournal of American History December1991 peekinginto the women's dressing room to see if anyof the womenwere shirking work.32 Frank'salleged involvement in suchsnooping contributed materially to hisdown- fall.It gaveforce to the chargeof "perversion"that ensured his conviction.It was a keypiece of circumstantialevidence buttressing the prosecution'scase thatthe murderwas an attemptto coverup a premeditatedattempted rape.33 Other such evidenceincluded operatives' testimony that Leo Frankhad a "lascivious"character, as wellas innuendosabout other sexual improprieties: clandestine trysts with prostitutes,homosexual liaisons, and eventhe bizarre anti-Semitic fantasy that Frank en- gagedin sexualacts with his nose. The prosecutionand pressdiscussed these accusa- tions in titillatingdetail, producinga "folkpornography" that aggravatedthe popularoutrage the testimony itself elicited.34 In a societyin whichsuch "unnatural acts"as sodomyand cunnilinguswere capital crimes, those who gavecredence to the chargessaw Frankas a moralpariah.35 The allegationsof perversioncarried weight because the concernsthey evoked wereso tangibleand the symbolsthey deployed so potentamong those with ties to femaleworkers. The languageof sexuality also offeredcompelling metaphors for nonsexualaspects of the case,for it bestexpressed the speakers'feelings of loss of controland impendingchaos in theirworld. References to "therape of justice" and the"prostitution of the courts" abounded, signifying the sense of intimate, personal violationthat changing power relations in societyaroused among the losers.36 The chargeof perversiondid not resonatewith Frank's opponents as simplya metaphorfor social disorder. It also encapsulatedclass and genderconflicts over the verydefinition of propriety in thenew circumstances of female employment. These conflictssurfaced in thetestimony of women workers about perceived sexual harass-

32 Briefof Evidence at 15-16,30, 35, 119,172-73, 222, Leo M. Frankv. State ofGeorgia. Other female industrial workersin the Southshared the grievance of violated privacy. "Most galling of all" the managementpractices applied to womenworkers involved in a strikein Elizabethton,Tennessee, "was company surveillance of the wash- room."See JacquelynDowd Hall, "DisorderlyWomen: Gender and LaborMilitancy in the AppalachianSouth," Journalof AmericanHistory, 73 (Sept. 1986), 364. 33 See Argumentof Hugh M. Dorsey,25-27, 139; and "Hearingbefore Gov. John M. Slaton,"87-89. Watson also put greatemphasis on thistestimony and on Frank'sfailure to cross-examinethese female employees. See ThomasE. Watson,"A Full Reviewof the Leo FrankCase," Watson's Magazine, 21 (March1915), 238-40; Watson, "CelebratedCase," 184-85. For the consensusthat the perversioncharge lay behindFrank's conviction, see, for example,Lucian Lamar Knight, A StandardHistory of Georgia and Georgians(2 vols.,Chicago, 1917), II, 1121-22; Harris,Autobiography, 350; and Dinnerstein,Leo FrankCase, 19. Frankasked rhetorically in a publicstatement: "Is therea man in Atlantawho would denythat the chargeof perversionwas the chiefcause of myconviction, ordeny that the case, without that charge, would be an entirelydifferent question?" Ibid., 102.For a similarsugges- tion fromone of Frank'slawyers, see "Hearingbefore Gov. John M. Slaton,"185-86, 189-90. 34 The chargescan be foundin Briefof Evidence at 50-51,55-62, 165,222-23, Leo M. Frankv. State ofGeorgia; "Hearingbefore Gov. John M. Slaton,"146, 148, 187-91;W. E. Thompson,A ShortReview of the FrankCase (Atlanta,1914), 24-25. Some employeestestified to Frank'sgood conductand character,but theyapparently were not as persuasiveas thosewho impugnedhim. See Briefof Evidence at 120-21,Leo M. Frankv. Stateof Georgia. On reportsof rapes and lynchingsserving as "folkpornography," seeJacquelyn Dowd Hall, Revoltagainst Chivalry: JessieDaniel Ames and the Women'sCampaign against Lynching (New York,1979), 150-51.For the indulgence of Frank'sleading opponentin such "folkpornography," see, forexample, Watson, "Official Record," 271-73. Watsonwas latertried for obscenity for his writingson Catholics,which a grandjury found "obscene, lewd, lascivious,and filthy."Augusta Chronicle, Nov. 30, 1915,pp. 1, 4. 35 Golden,A LittleGirl Is Dead, 133. 36 See, forexample, Watson, "Official Record," 267, 268, 293. The Leo FrankCase Reconsidered 933 mentby Frank.Their reports that he touchedthem, called themby first names, spied on them,and met withthem behind closed doors constituted ample proof of his dishonorablecharacter in the view of ordinaryworking people. Frank's defenders,on theother hand, who shared his notions of employers' prerogatives and who did not haveto endurethe unwantedfamiliarity that communicated inferior statusand powerlessness,seemed unable to comprehendthe girls'interpretation, muchless to counterit convincingly.The closingspeech to the juryby Frank's attorney,Reuben Arnold, was a modelof this insensitivity. He expressedastonishment at thecharges of sexual misconduct made bythe prosecution and annoyanceat their "prudish"failure to catchup withthe timesand be more"broad-minded" about practiceslike an employerputting his hand on a femaleemployee's shoulder. He also made a rhetoricaleffort to belittlethe complaintsthat Frankviolated the privacyof the women'sdressing room: "Surely a womanisn't so absolutelysacred thatyou can't ask her to performher contract . . . and ifshe isn'tdoing it, askher why,and findout why."37Arnold's incredulity was the measureof the vastsocial distanceseparating him fromLeo Frank'sopponents.

Yet thegender meanings of the case involvedfar more than a conflictamong men overcontrol of women.In additionto stirringup resentmentabout the potential sexualpower of employers, the case also dramatizedcommon adult concerns about the implicationsof employmentfor young women's own behaviorand sexualac- tivity.Among Frank's opponents, the intense, nearly universal insistence that Mary Phagan died "in defenseof her virtue"barely camouflaged their anxiety about youngwomen's -perhaps increasingly-active sexual agency. Then as now,it was frequentlydifficult to separateagency from victimization since women often experi- encedmen's disproportionate social power most painfully and intimatelyin sexual relations.38This was particularlythe case fordependent adolescents such as Mary Phagan,not yetfourteen at the time of her death. Theirvulnerability notwith- standing,there was neverthelessa liberatingpotential for these young women in paid laboroutside the home, and the sparseevidence available indicates that they themselvesperceived and acted upon it, muchas theirparents feared it. Unfortunately,historians have been slow to recognizethat potential in theSouth; as a result,our knowledgeof its manifestationsis limited.The northernbias of women'shistory and laborhistory and the male, agrarianbias of southernhistory haveproduced - throughneglect - theimpression of static gender and generational relationsin the South. An impressivebody of literaturenow documentsthe ways youngworking women transformed gender roles and claimedonce-taboo pleasures forthemselves in theNorth and Midwestin theearly twentieth century. "But these

3 AtlantaJournal, Aug. 21, 1913,pp. 1, 7, 9, 11,reel 2822, FrankCollection. See also Arnold,Trial of Leo Frank,ed. Sellers,36. 38 On theambiguity and thereality of female sexual agency in theperiod covered by this essay, see EllenCarol DuBois and LindaGordon, "Seeking Ecstasy on theBattlefield: Danger and Pleasurein Nineteenth-CenturyFemi- nistThought," Feminist Studies, 9 (Spring1983), 7-25. 934 TheJournal of AmericanHistory December1991

'modern'workers, pioneers of a newheterosocial subculture," as Jacquelyn Hall has astutelyobserved, "disappear when historianstake up the subjectof the 20th- centurySouth. Below the Mason-Dixonline, historians find no SisterCarries, no 'charitygirls,' no 'womenadrift,' only the timelessfigures of the promiscuous black womanand thepassionless white." Hall's pioneering studies show, however, that relationsbetween women and men in southerncities and smalltowns were indeed changingin thoseyears, due in good part to the spreadof femalewage earning. Thisbackground can help accountfor the conflicts within and betweenclasses over genderroles and femalesexual behavior that surged into view when women workers wentout on strike.39 Indeed,while the form of women'slabor force participation and responsesto it mayhave been different in theSouth, there seems no reasonto doubtthat the basic processeswere analogous to thosein the North.Certainly contemporary southern observersrecognized that a transformationwas afoot. "The businessgirl," wrote WilliamJ. Robertsonin his 1927 surveyof the changesthat had sweptthe South since1900, "is almostas prevalentin theSouth as she is in theNorth." Robertson's remarkwas as mucha lamentas an observation,for he attributedto "thewomen themselves,"no longersheltered by "their fathers and brothers,"a veritable revolu- tionin relationsbetween the sexes among the younger generation. Female modesty and male chivalrywere giving way to a new"frankness and lackof convention," Vic- torianmorality to widelypracticed casual sex. Whetheror not theysympathized withthe developments they witnessed, informed commentators at thetime believed thatyoung working women throughout the countrywere claiming new independence and employingit in pursuitof male companionshipand sexualadventure. EvangelistBilly Sunday delivered the same sermons on thesexual transgressions of "workinggirls" to audiencesnorth and southin the 1910s,confident that Atlantans committedthe same sinsas Yankees.40 So the issueof youngwomen's labor was not specificto the Frankcontroversy. On thecontrary, the responses of participants echoed earlier reactions toward female

39 Hall, "Secrets,"28. Fordevelopments in theNorth and Midwest,see Meyerowitz,Women Adrift; Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements:Working Women and Leisurein Turn-of-the-CenturyNew York(Philadelphia, 1986); and ElizabethEwen, Immigrant Women in theLand ofDollars: Life and Cultureon theLower East Side, 1890-1925 (New York,1985). On the interlacingof genderand classconflicts during a strikein Atlantawhile Frank's case was on appeal, see Hall, "Secrets."See also Hall, "DisorderlyWomen"; and Hall et al., Like a Family,184-236. The onlyoverview of southern women's history in thisperiod remains the classic by Anne Firor Scott, The Southern Lady:From Pedestal to Politics,1830-1930 (Chicago, 1970). It highlightspostbellum changes in women'sroles but focuseson middle-classwomen. 40 Robertson,Changing South, 126-29. A studyof youthfulfemale workers in the Southin the 1920sfound "a desirefor financial freedom" and "a generaldesire for independence" among their motives. Further attesting to theiragency, most of thosesurveyed felt confident that they had improvedtheir lives and achievedtheir goals bygetting work in cities.Orie LathamHatcher, Rural Girlsin the Cityfor Work(Richmond, 1930), 41, 83-84. On thenationwide similarity of young working women, see, for example, Robert A. Woodsand AlbertJ.Kennedy, eds., YoungWorking Girls. A Summaryof Evidence from Two Thousand Social Workers(Boston, 1913), esp. 1, 7-8; and Ben B. Lindseyand WainwrightEvans, The Revoltof Modern Youth(New York,1925). The Frankcase occurredon the cusp of a shiftthat Joanne J. Meyerowitznotes in the 1910s- froma sentimental,Victorian view of workingwomen as passivevictims to a moremodern recognition of them as agentsand sexualactors. See Meyerowitz,Women Adrift, esp. 119.Mark K. Bauman,"Hitting the SawdustTrail: Billy Sunday's Atlanta Cam- paign of 1917,"Southern Studies, 19 (Winter1980), 385-99; William G. McLoughlin,"Billy Sunday and the WorkingGirl of 1915,"Journal of PresbyterianHistory, 54 (Fall 1976). The Leo FrankCase Reconsidered 935 laborvoiced by middle-class reformers and male craftunionists. As earlyas 1891, in a sensationaland widelydebated article, the journalist Clare de Graffenriedpor- trayedsouthern mill communitiesas places thatturned the naturalorder upside down:idle fatherslost their manhood, as wivesand daughters,their modesty and chastitygone, toiled in themills. It wasnot untilthe turn of the century, however, as thecampaign against child labor gained momentum, that contention over gender rolesbegan in earnest.-Fear that an enforcedearly adulthood, freedom from pa- rentalsupervision, and closeassociation with the opposite sex were leading young womenastray pervaded the discourseover youthful female labor in Northand South, particularlyafter the massive1907 Senate investigationof femalewage earningreported that it did indeed contributeto "immorality"among young workingwomen. In 1910the GeorgiaFederation of Labor urged women to stayout ofindustry; their proper place was in thehome and notcompeting with male bread- winners.At thesame time,however, the federation endorsed woman suffrage and equal pay and theAtlanta Journal of Labor publishedregular columns by Ola D. Smith,a labororganizer and working-classfeminist who insistedon women'sright to labor and to participatein public life.41 These varied,often ambivalent,reactions suggest that female employment acutelytested earlier patterns of paternalauthority. Even if she continuedto live withher family, a daughtergoing out to workhad opportunitiesto asserther own autonomyand to makechoices about her relations with men thatwould have been difficultfor her grandmother to imagine.By keepingall or partof herwages, by courtingor marryingagainst her parents'wishes, she mightnot only defyher father'ssense of his ownprerogatives but also endangerhis strategyfor family sur- vival.In theclasses from which Frank's opponents came, paternal authority was inte- gralto organizinga household'ssubsistence. Farmers, tenants, wage earners,and small-businesspeople alikehad a materialstake in controlof theirchildren's behavior.Youths made vitalcontributions to theirhouseholds' maintenance, whether plowingthe family's land, tending its store or garden, supervising younger children whileparents worked, or bringingin cash frommill or factorywork. Moreover, in the absenceof elementarysocial security provisions from the state,parents had to look to theirchildren for support in old age. Wage-earningdaughters threatened not onlyto affrontthe cultural values of theirparents but also to disruptpatterns ofhousehold economy. Such practical concerns informed fathers' desires to regulate

41 Clarede Graffenried,"The GeorgiaCracker in theCotton Mills," Century Magazine, 51 (Feb. 1891),483-98. On the ensuingdebate, see LeeAnnWhites, "The De GraffenriedControversy: Class, Race, and Genderin the New South,"Journalof Southern History, 54 (Aug. 1983),454n. Forcontemporary perceptions of youngworking women'simmorality, see U.S. Dept. ofLabor, Summary ofthe Report, 273-74, 380-82; FredS. Hall, "ChildLabor and Delinquency,"ChildLabor Bulletin, 3 (Nov. 1914),37-51; and FelixAdler, "Child Labor in theUnited States and Its GreatAttendant Evils," in NationalChild LaborCommittee, Child Labor (New York,1905), 15. See also Meyerowitz,Women Adrift, esp. 48. Foran exampleof how such concernsinfused discussion of the Frankcase, see,"The Mary Phagan Side ofIt," Columbia [South Carolina] Record, undated clipping, [c. April1915], reel 2824, FrankCollection. Evans, "History of OrganizedLabor in Georgia,"253, 212, 249; Hall, "Secrets,"35-38. On southerncraft unionists' uneasiness with unskilled women workers' failure to conformto theirnotions of sexual respectability,see ibid.; and Hall, "DisorderlyWomen." For the Atlantalabor movement's positions on issuesin- volvingworking women, see AtlantaJournalof Labor, July 5, 1912,p. 1; ibid., Feb. 7, 1913,p. 4; and ibid., Aug. 15, 1913,p. 4. 936 TheJournal of American History December1991 theirchildren's behavior.42 In these new circumstances,the boundariesof male dominanceand themethods of its enforcement became open to renegotiation.The Leo Frankcase was an episodein thatprocess. The testimonyof women workers during the trialgave cause forparental alarm in thisregard. Several witnesses, for example, told of "girls" in thefactory "flirting" withmale passersbyout the dressingroom window. Despite ordersfrom manage- mentto stop and effortsby disapprovingolder female employees to preventthe practice,the girls persisted. Reports of the flirtations led at leastone fatherto make hisdaughter quit the job againsther will. Other testimony showed that by bringing youngwomen and men togetherin dailyinteraction, the NationalPencil Factory, likeother factories in the South,became a siteof courtshipas well as production. Indeed, reportsindicated that a fewof MaryPhagan's male co-workershad taken a shineto herthemselves and thattheir antipathy to Frankflowed in partfrom jeal- ousy.Evidence of unwedmotherhood and prostitutionamong some formerem- ployeesof the National Pencil Factoryalso came to light. Some youngwomen workersevidently engaged in formsof self-assertion and interactionwith men that threatenedprevailing gender codes. Revelationsof theiractivities during the trial confirmedcommon adult fears about the implicationsof wage labor for the sexual purityof Atlanta's"working girls."43 This contexthelps make sense of an otherwisemysterious aspect of the case: Al- thoughthe sexualaccusations leveled against Frank were widely accepted by those who believedhim guilty,they lacked foundation. Medical examiners, for example, neverfound clear evidence of rape. The caseinitially made byFrank's defense - that Conleyhad killedPhagan in an attemptto robher -was as plausibleas theprosecu- tion'scase; indeed,her handbag was never found. By the time of Frank's commutation,moreover, some of the testimony against him had beendiscredited, while new evidencepointed toward Conley. Nevertheless, the popular desire to believethe rape chargewas so greatthat even Frank's own attorneys ultimately altered their strategy and arguedas if a rape had accompaniedthe robberythey initially alleged as the motivefor the crime. For the historian, the questionis whythe chargeof rape won so much credence.44

42 On southerners'reliance on the laborand servicesof familymembers, see, forexample, Margaret Jarman Hagood, Mothersof the South: Portraitureof the WhiteTenant Farm Woman (1939; reprint,New York,1977); AllisonDavis, BurleighGardner, and MaryB. Gardner,Deep South:A Social AnthropologicalStudy of Caste and Class (Chicago, 1941),esp. 327-28, 409-10, 413; HerbertG. Gutman, The Black Familyin Slaveryand Freedom,1750-1925 (New York,1976); John Kenneth Morland, Millways of Kent (Chapel Hill, 1958), esp. 84, 95; Lois MacDonald, SouthernMill Hills: A Studyof Social and EconomicForces in CertainMill Villages(New York,1928), esp. 131;andJenningsJ. Rhyne, Some SouthernCotton Mill Workersand TheirVillages (Chapel Hill, 1930).On theway gender and generationalhierarchy undergirded the household economy of antebellum yeomen, see McCurry,"Defense of TheirWorld." 43 Briefof Evidenceat 20, 23, 135, 173-74,223-24, Leo M. Frankv. Stateof Georgia;Watson, "Celebrated Case,"200; "Hearingbefore Gov. John M. Slaton,"94. One workplace-basedcourting elsewhere in the South,see Byerly,Hard TimesCotton Mill Girls,131, 156; Janiewski, Sisterhood Denied, 98; and Hall et al., Likea Family, 86, 140-41. Concernsabout the effectsof wage labor on workingwomen's sexual behavior appeared dramatically in theresponses of middle-class reformers, labor spies, and craftunionists to theFulton Bag and CottonMills strike in Atlantaduring the yearsof the Frankcase. See Hall, "Secrets." 44Brief of Evidenceat 45-50, 159, 161-64,Leo M. Frankv. Stateof Georgia;"Hearing before Gov. John M. Slaton,"11-12. For the change in thecase made byFrank's lawyers, see "Hearingbefore Gov. John M. Slaton,"10-13. The Leo FrankCase Reconsidered 937

The answerreflects the central role of sexual conservatism in thisinstance of reactionarypopulism. The beliefthat Mary Phagan was raped by Leo Frankrather than robbedbyJim Conley can be readin partas a massiveexercise in denialon thepart of people unwillingto acknowledgeyouthful female sexual agency. For although therewas no compellingevidence of recent or forcible intercourse, there were phys- icalsigns that Phagan may not have been a virgin.45Once herbody had beenfound and examined,there were two choices: to believethat she had been murderedto coverup a perversesexual assault that failed to leavethe normal evidence or to admit thatperhaps she had beensexually active before the day she was murdered and come to termswith the new social reality this scenario represented. Frank's opponents re- fusedto do thelatter; their gender code did not allowfor such ambiguities. Either a womanwas chaste and worthyof protection or she shamedherself and herpeople, therebyrelinquishing her claim to protection. The mereinnuendo that Phagan was unchastedrew howls from Frank's opponents."Shame upon thosewhite men who desecratethe murderedchild's grave, andwho add tothe torture of the mother who lost her," bellowed Tom Watson, "by sayingMary was an uncleanlittle wanton." Another man condemnedFrank's sup- portersfor what he describedas theirefforts "to portray her character as a strumpet." Forall thespeakers' sympathy for Mary Phagan as a youngvirgin struggling against an employer'slust, they would have nothing but contempt for a sexuallyactive Mary Phagan,even as the victimof brutalrobbery and murder.Like the scores of young womenworkers who becameunwed mothers or prostitutes, without the halo ofin- nocenceand purityPhagan could not have servedtheir purposes.46 Frank'saccusers' response to the case reflecteda longingto wardoff the change in sexualbehavior that a nonvirginMary would have represented.They actively promoteda mythologyof Phaganas a sexualinnocent who died in a noble effort to defendher "virtue."47 This mythology registered grievances about contemporary classrelations while it harkenedback to an ideologyof genderrelations developed in an agrarianhousehold economy. As a graphicmorality play, it offereda wayof copingwith social change that avoided the complex reality of women's sexual initia- tive.And in so doing,it helpedold genderand classideology survive in a newage.

45 See, forexample, Brief of Evidenceat 15-16,46-50, Leo M. Frankv. State of Georgia. 46 Watson,"Full Review," 266. See also Watson,"Official Record," 190. J. D. Chason,M.D., to Slaton,May 31, 1915,folder 10, box 45, SlatonCollection. A formerAugusta resident pointed out thatthe red-light districts there were"filled with mill girls";prostitution was "organizedand wide open" with"not the smallestprotest on the partof anybodythere." "The troublewith Georgia," he concluded,"is thatshe thinkstoo littleof MaryPhagan aliveand too muchof MaryPhagan dead." EdwinW. Walkerto editor,New YorkSun, Sept. 10, 1915,reel 221, LynchingFile, 1899-1919,Tuskegee Institute News Clippings File (Hollis BurkeFrissell Library, Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee,Ala.). 47 Thisis notto denythat Phagan may have been a virgin,but to underscorethe intensity of thewill to believe thatshe was among Frank's opponents and theiragency in constructingthe meaning of her death. Nor am I using the word"mythology" loosely: as icon,Mary became an importantpart of the folkculture of the Southand of mill workersin particular.Her ordealwas recountedin the "Ballardof MaryPhagan," which in severalversions circulatedthrough the mill regions of the South in ensuingdecades. See Gene Wiggins,"The Socio-PoliticalWorks of Fiddlin'John and MoonshineKate," Southern Folklore Quarterly, 41 (1977), esp. 100-104;Stephen R. Wiley, "Songsof the Gastonia Textile Strike of 1929:Models of and forSouthern Working-Class Women's Militancy," North CarolinaFolklore Journal, 30 (Fall-Winter1982), 94-95. 938 TheJournal of AmericanHistory December1991

Forin death,Phagan became a rolemodel forher peers in a moraltale of epic proportions.She became,in thewords of a resolutionby an Atlantaunion, an example of the girlwho, despite her poverty,"yet holds pure the pricelessjewel of virtueand surrendersher life rather than yield to thedemands of lustful force." The editorof the city'slabor paper applauded the union'scall fora "shrineof a martyr to virtue'sprotection." A local ministermade even more explicitthe instructive power her example was to have. He solicitedcontributions for a monument depicting"the little factory girl who recently laid downher life for her honor" shown "in the agoniesof death."He wantedthe statueto stand "on the State Capitol grounds. .. as a lessonto the workingwomanhood of Georgiawho are havingto battle theirway alone." It was leftto the United ConfederateVeterans of her hometown,however, with the support of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to build such a monumentas "a symbolof the purityof the littlevirgin." They hoped thatin rewardingPhagan, "who surrendered her sweet young life to saveher honor,"they would teach others high esteem for chastity, "that Christian attribute - the crown,glory and honorof truewomanhood."48 That twoorganizations devoted to the glorificationof the Old South,with its rootsin slaveryand racist,patrician values, should rally against a whiteemployer ratherthan a blackworker indicates the complexity of the conflicts in thecase. And, in fact,although the case raised issues concerning the susceptibility of working-class womento economicand sexualexploitation that a radicallabor or women'smove- mentmight address, these issues were resolved in a thoroughlyreactionary way. Not onlydid the leadersof the agitationagainst Frank make a fetishof virginityand denywomen's sexual agency; they also demanded"protection" of womenby men ratherthan measures that might enable youngwomen to protectthemselves, thus reinforcingthe paternalismof male supremacy.49 The mostgraphic illustration of this was the lynching of Frank by twenty-five men callingthemselves "the Knights of Mary Phagan." The namewas an obviousappeal to the chivalrictradition that the lynchingacted out, a traditionin which,as Jac- quelynHall put it, "theright of the Southernlady to protectionpresupposed her obligationto obey."The mob thatkilled Frank included leading citizens of Phagan's hometown,who had pledgedthemselves at thetime of the commutation to avenge herfamily's honor. Their act evokedplaudits from many quarters; "no finerpiece ofKu-Kluxing was ever known in Georgia,"the official state historian later exulted. 50

48 AtlantaJournal of Labor; Sept. 12, 1913,p. 4; J. C. Parrottto editor,ibid., Sept. 15, 1913,p. 4. Forother homilieson Maryin thesame vein, see Watson,"Official Record," 275, 279, 280; Watson,"Full Review," 257, 266; and Argumentof Hugh M. Dorsey,76. MariettaJournal and Courier,July 16, 1915,pp. 1, 6. 49 Dr. Anna HowardShaw made thispoint nicely, retorting to the incominggovernor's claim that Georgians believedthe commutationof Frank'ssentence had allowedmoney to triumphover women's "honor." "Perhaps if Georgiawere more ready to protectby law thehonor of young girls," she stated,"and to betterthe working condi- tionsthat menace it, lynchlaw mightnot so oftenbe invokedto mend moralsby murder."De Kalb [Illinois] Chronicle,Aug. 26, 1915,reel 2822, FrankCollection. 50 Hall, Revoltagainst Chivalry, 151; Knight,Standard History of Georgiaand Georgians,II, 1182-96.On popularsupport for the lynching, see Dinnerstein,Leo FrankCase, 139-46; Harris,Autobiography, 368, 371; and L. Z. Rosserto Slaton,Sept. 1, 1915,folder 3, box 49, SlatonCollection. Although the identityof the lynchers was said to be knownto many,they were never indicted, much less prosecutedor convicted. The Leo FrankCase Reconsidered 939

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~::

31 ......

Maitamnmiln rud ern' supede bod to amrehehndwrko th ngt fMryPaa.Cuts Geri Dep n of Arhie and Hitry. 940 TheJournal of AmericanHistory December1991

Mosttelling was the behavior of the crowd that gathered around Frank's suspended body.One reporterdescribed the scene as being"like some religious rite"; the par- ticipantsexhibited a "curiouslyreverent manner" and an airof "gravesatisfaction." Phagan'sfamily also endorsedthe paternalisticsettlement. Indeed, her mother's firstpublic statement after the lynching was that "she was satisfied with the manner of endingthe case."Popular sanction for the lynchingwas furtherevident in the wayit becameenshrined in the folkculture of the South. The "Ballad of Mary Phagan,"composed during the trial and performedfor anticommutation crowds by the popular musicianFiddlin' John Carson,was later updated to glorifyher avengers.It wassung for decades afterward in millcommunities throughout the region. Frank'slynching thus scoreda symbolictriumph for Old South gender ideology,as representedby the Knights of MaryPhagan, over the emergingpower of industrialcapitalism, as representedby Frank, while the wayof lifeassociated withthat earlier culture was rapidlylosing ground.51

In the end, this"chivalrous" resolution of the genderconcerns not onlyexpressed the popularmalaise that the case revealed.It also helped submergethe radical potentialin thepopular mood. The paternalisticreaction to thegender issues con- stitutedan integralelement of a moregeneral reactionary populist response. The conservativedynamics of thispopulism were most obvious in the wayclass an- tagonismsultimately were channeledinto anti-Semitism,and in the way the lynchingassuaged popular hostility to the state.But in each case, the powerof genderissues contributed to the outcome. That the Frankcase servedas a forumfor the expressionof classenmity has al- readybeen demonstrated. Yet as thecommutation struggle unfolded, the hostilities of the popularclasses toward large capital and its representativesmore and more tookon an anti-Semiticcast. "Our countryhas beenbartered to theshylocks of high finance,"declared one pro-Watsoneditor, for example, while other Frank opponents denounced"DirtyJews with thir Dirty Dollars" and "big Hebrewmoney."52 If not

51 AtlantaGeorgian, Aug. 17, 1915,reel 2824, FrankCollection; Newman [Georgia] Herald, Aug. 20, 1915, p. 2. "MaryPhagan's folks," said the ownerof the treefrom which Frank was hanged,"hugged and pattedthat old treeand thenthey stood still and lookedupward for a longtime. I thinkthey must have been praying." Atlanta Constitution,Aug. 21, 1915,p. 2. Wiggins,"Socio-Political Works of Fiddlin'John"; Wiley, "Songs of the Gastonia TextileStrike of 1929,"94-95; OliveW. Burt,ed., AmericanMurder Ballads and TheirStories (New York,1958), 61-64. 52 La Grange[Georgia] Graphic, Feb. 14, 1916,folder 12, box 45, SlatonCollection; J. M. Gassawayto Slaton, June6, 1915,folder 10, box 45, ibid; H. 0. Durhamto R. E. Davison,June 1, 1915,folder 1, box 35, ibid For otherexamples of economicand classgrievances expressed in anti-Semiticform, see J. R. and T. Bunn to Prison Commissioners,May 24, 1915,folder 1, box 35, ibid.; R. W. Daniel to PrisonCommissioners, May 22, 1915,folder 2, box 35, ibid.; E. F. Dumas to Slaton,May 27, 1915,folder 1, box 35, ibid.; C. A. Jacksonto Slaton,folder 1, box 35, ibid.; H. J. Sandlinto PrisonCommissioners, June 2, 1915,folder 14, box 35, ibid; J. P. Berrongto Slaton, May 15, 1915,folder 10, box 45, ibid. Virtuallyall of the crowdactions (boycotts, warnings out of town,arson, etc.) afterFrank's commutation not aimed at the governorwere aimed at Jewishmerchants or employers.See the leafletCarry Me in YourPurse ([Marietta], c. lateJune1915) and accompanyingletter "To the Citizens of Marietta," reel2825, FrankCollection; New OrleansAmerican, June 23, 1915,pp. 1, 9, reel2825, ibid.; AugustaChronicle, Aug. 29, 1915,p. 7; Athens[Georgia] Daily Herald, Oct. 20, 1915,p. 1; Hertzberg,Strangers within the Gate City,213; and B. H. Meadowsto NathanielE. Harris,July 1, 1915,July 7, 1915,folder 1, box 228, NathanielE. HarrisPapers, Executive Department Correspondence (Georgia Department of Archivesand History). The Leo FrankCase Reconsidered 941

And~~~~A 1 -LOW IC

AS THE NEW YORK WORLD-JEW OWNED-SEES US.

Watson'sMagazine reprint (Oct. 1915)of a New YorkWorld cartoon showing Georgia as a wild woman.The Watson'sMagazine caption illustrates Populist anti-Semitism. CourtesyTom WatsonBrown, great-grandson of ThomasE. Watson.

all of Frank'sopponents shared this approach, none condemnedanti-Semitism in forthrightterms. As a result,through the active efforts of some and thepassive de- faultof others,Jews became the foilfor all capitalism'sevils, while Georgia's and the nation'smost powerful capitalists escaped notice or blame.53 To viewthe anti-Semitictrajectory of the case as a conscious,cynical sleight of handon thepart of leadingFrank opponents would be simplistic.Politicians such

53 See Watson,"Full Review,"242; Watson,"Official Record," 262, 267, 292-97; Watson,"Celebrated Case," 222. One editoradvised anyone who doubtedthat prejudice against Jews existed to "boardan Atlantastreet car filledwith home-going working people." Southern Ruralist, March 15, 1914,reel 2822, FrankCollection. On anti- Semitismas a diversionarysurrogate for anticapitalist sentiments, serving profoundly antiradical ends, see Carey McWilliams,A Mashfor Privilege: Anti-Semitism in America(Boston, 1948); and themore theoretically inclined analysisof Europeananti-Semitism, Abram Leon, TheJewish Question: A MarxistInterpretation (Mexico City, 1950). 942 TheJournal of AmericanHistory December1991 as TomWatson and Joseph Mackey Brown, themselves men of substantialproperty who stoodto lose shoulda genuinelyanticapitalist labor movementdevelop, did energeticallypromote anti-Semitic interpretations ofclass hostilities. Yet their incli- nationto viewthe case in thisway came fromthe pettyproducer-based political culturethey shared with their followers. Indeed, giventhe antipathyof Populism and produceristideology more generally to "unproductive"finance capital, with whichJews were particularly associated in the mindsof manycontemporaries, the potentialfor anti-Semitic responses to the case existedwithout the machinations of men likeWatson and Brown.54 Whatis mostinteresting for our purposes here, however, is notthe source of this potentialbut the role gender issues played in itsrealization. Just as sexualanxieties infusedprejudices against African Americans in southernsociety, so fearsabout changinggender roles and sexualjealousies combined with class hostilities in the anti-Semitismof the Frank case. Popularassociations ofJews with the vice trade and stereotypesabout the alleged lust ofJewish men for gentile women made Frank vul- nerableas a suspectin the firstplace.55 One opponentof commutationfor Frank informedthe GeorgiaPrison Commission that "there is twothings most of them [Jews]will do. One is theywill steal or make or have money [and] theother is this[:] do everything posible [sic] all throughlife to seduceour Gentile Girls and Women." TomWatson, who had recentlyadded anti-Catholicismto his arsenal,implied that Jewishemployers had a penchantfor taking sexual advantage of women akin to that he allegedagainst papal priests.He describedthe factoryas "a Jewishconvent as lasciviousas a Catholicmonastery," a belief some of his readers endorsed. Years later a Ku Klux Klan writer,complaining of supposed "outrages inflicted upon innocent girlsby Hebrewlibertines," referred back to the Frankcase as evidence.Anti- Semitismthus provided simple answers for the complicated questions of changing patternsof classpower and femalesexuality. Capitalism was a good social system, unlessmanipulated and deformedbyJews; young women were pure, asexual beings, unlesslured into depravityby treacherousracial others.56

54 In a politicalculture extolling the "producing classes," Jews often occupied unpopular positions as ruralped- dlers,country merchants, and urbanmerchants and businessmen.The economicinterests of manyAtlanta Jews, moreover,had led themin the 1890sto oppose thepopular demand of GeorgiaPopulists for free silver, creating lastingresentments; see Hertzberg,Strangers within the Gate City,184, 152-53, 163. See also ThomasD. Clark, "The Post-CivilWar Economy in the South,"in Jews in theSouth, ed. LeonardDinnerstein and MaryDale Palsson (BatonRouge, 1973), 160-67.For a moregeneral discussion, seeJohn Higham, "American Anti-Semitism Histori- callyReconsidered," in Jewsin the Mind of America,ed. CharlesH. Stemberet al. (New York,1966), 237-58. 55In Atlanta,for example, in the decade beforethe Frank case, Prohibitionists had accusedJews of promoting viceand encouragingblack men to takeliberties with white women. Hertzberg, Strangers within the Gate City, 161-62,186-87, 214. In the nationalcampaign against "white slavery" that fed into the Frank case, foreign men, in particularRussian Jews, were blamed for the prostitution industry. Feldman, "Prostitution, the AlienWoman, and theProgressive Imagination," 192-206. Many writers have noted the importance of sexual themes and anxieties in themost extreme forms of racism, including Lillian Smith, Killers ofthe Dream (New York, 1948), 27-28, 83-84, 111, 121-22,124; Hall, Revoltagainst Chivalry, 145; Davis, Gardner,and Gardner,Deep South,24-25; James WeldonJohnson,Along this Way (New York,1968), 170,311-13, 391; and CharlesHerbert Stember, Sexual Racism (New York,1976). 56 M. M. Parkerto PrisonCommissioners, May 31, 1915,folder 2, box 35, SlatonCollection. See also G. M. Wilsonto PrisonCommissioners, n.d., folder 10, box45, ibid.;Jno. H. Wellingtonto Slaton,June 24, 1915,reel 2, FrankCorrespondence. For Watson's statement, see Golden,A LittleGirlIs Dead, 23. Forthe backing of a former The Leo FrankCase Reconsidered 943

While anti-Semitismdeflected economic class hostilities, the lynchingitself de- fusedpolitical class hostilities. Popular distrust of the state apparatus and suspicion thatit was becominga tool of the wealthyemerged early in the controversyover commutation.Over and overagain, Frank's opponents decried the elite's control of politicalaffairs and denouncedclass injustice in thecourt system. Governor Slaton's commutationof Frank's sentence confirmed these beliefs. "As usual," one writerput it,"the rich have triumphed over the poor, the strong over the weak, those who nei- thertoil or spinover the working people.... God help thepoor; the rich take care of themselves."57And Frank'sopponents were rightthat immenseamounts of moneyand power,resources to which Mary Phagan's people had no access,were mar- shaledon his behalf,and the governordid yieldto thispower and overridethe au- thorityof a dulyconstituted jury. Georgians could readilyinterpret Slaton's dis- regardfor the decisionsof the juryand the appeals judges as reflectinga larger patternin whichthe state in Georgiaby the early twentieth century served capital, usuallyto thedetriment of otherclasses. Not onlydid thegovernment exclude all women,most blacks, and manypoor whites from the electorateand denythem all but rudimentaryeducation and welfare.It also bolsteredthe powerof wealth throughviolent opposition to strikes,through class and raceprivilege in the court system,and throughvagrancy, contract, and lien laws thatlimited workers and tenants'freedom of movement.58 Yetrather than proposing substantive measures to redressclass injustice, Frank's opponentsinstead sought solutions in a politicalideology developed under condi- tionsthat no longerexisted. They directed their hopes towardthe restorationof a now-mythicalrepublican state, in which"the people" white,male headsof household in theproducing classes -controlled a governmentof limited powers. The ra- tionalefor the lynching expressed this reactionary populist ideology. Frank's oppo-

Populistand laterKlan supporter,see RobertL. Rodgersto ThomasE. Watson,Sept. 9, 1915,folder 41, box 5, RobertL. RodgersPapers (Manuscripts Section, Georgia Department of Archivesand History).Blaine Mast, KKK, Friendor Foe: Which?(n.p., 1924), 22, 19. Forexamples in laterKu Klux Klan literatureof the claim thatJewishmen soughtto takeadvantage of Protestantgirls in general,and femaleemployees in particular,see ImperialNight-Hawk, April 30, 1924,p. 6; Alma White,The Ku Klux Klan in Prophecy(Zarepath, NJ., 1925), 53-54; and Alma White,Heroes of the FieryCross (Zarepath, NJ., 1928), 10, 34-36. 57 [Name illegible]to Watson,June 25, 1915,reel 2, FrankCorrespondence. See also "A Friendof theJust" to Slaton,June 22, 1915,ibid.; H. L. Williamsonto Slaton,June 21, 1915,ibid.; H. G. Williamsto Slaton,June 24, [1915],ibid.; B. H. Hatfieldto Slaton,May 11, 1915,folder 10, box 45, SlatonCollection; Claud Mahaffey to Slaton,June 21, 1915,folder 4, box 45, ibid.; JohnBrack to Slaton,June 15, 1915,folder 4, box 45, ibid.; F. J. Bivirrsto Slaton,n.d., folder 1, box 35, ibid.; W. S. Landrimto Slaton,June 14, 1915,folder 4, box 45, ibid.; WilliamH. Crouseto PrisonCommissioners, May 14, 1915,folder 1, box 35, ibid.; "A Committee"to Slaton,n.d., folder4, box45, ibid.; W. W. Poole to Slaton,June 21, 1915,folder 7, box 50a, ibid.; A. J. Oiler to Slaton,June 21, 1915,folder 4, box 45, ibid.; L. F. Robertsto PrisonCommissioners, May 28, 1915,folder 15, box 35, ibid.; A. Purvisto Harris,June 28, 1915,folder 2, box 229, HarrisPapers. 58 On thelobbying effort for Frank, see Dinnerstein,Leo FrankCase, 117-35;and themore revealing correspon- dencebetween A. D. Lasker,Julius Rosenwald, and Jacob Billikopf, reel 1069, Frank Collection. Numerous people protestedSlaton's usurpation of the jury'srole in decidingFrank's guilt. See, forexample, "General Public" to Slaton,June 22, 1915,reel 2, FrankCorrespondence; W. L. Sikesto Slaton,June 24, 1915,ibid.; I. A. Christian to Slaton,n.d., ibid.; "The LifeTakers" to Slaton,June 24, 1915,ibid.; petitionfrom citizens of FranklinCounty to Slaton,June 23, 1915,ibid. Scoresof otherletters and petitionssimply asked Slatonnot to "interfere"with thecourts' decisions, and to "let the law takeits course."On the classrole of the statein southernsociety before WorldWar I, see Kousser,Shaping of Southern Politics; and Jonathan M. Wiener,"Class Structure and Economic Developmentin the AmericanSouth, 1865-1955,"American Historical Review, 84 (Oct. 1979), 970-92. 944 TheJournal of AmericanHistory December1991

nentsviewed vigilante activity as a legitimateexercise of popular sovereignty when statepolicy no longerreflected the citizenry's will. They equated the killing of Frank witha traditionof popular mobilization against the powerful in theservice of "justice."The Knightsof Mary Phagan were but thelatest in a linethat included Christ drivingthe moneychangers from the temple,Martin Luther and the earlyProtes- tants,the sans culottes of the French Revolution, and thepatriots of the Boston Tea Party."Allpower is in thepeople," explained Watson in a paean to the "righteous wrath"of the "Vigilance Committee" that murdered Frank. "When the constituted authoritiesare unable, or unwilling to protect life, liberty, and property,"he averred, "thePeople must assert their right to do so."59Many Frank opponents defended the lynchingon thegrounds that by "rob[bing] the law of part of its terror," as one peti- tionput it,the commutation of his sentence encouraged disrespect for the law and promoted"anarchy" and "mob rule."In otherwords, the act of the mob, in ad- ministeringthe stern punishment prescribed by the courts, would achieve the con- servativegoal ofpreserving fear of the law.Taking Frank's life would ensure order, stability,and respectfor property.60 Here again,though, conceptions of gendercontributed to the motivesand the rationale.They influenced the sanctiongiven to the lynchingand to the modelof statepower it represented.Punishment for alleged rape servedas the ultimate justificationfor lynchings in southernsociety. "Any man," explained one afterthe commutation,"who has verymuch family pride in theirhearts, would be in favor of mob law,under the circumstances."61Defending the Knightsof MaryPhagan,

59Watson, "Official Record," 254, 290-91. For otherdefenses of the lynchingcouched in a restorationist, populistidiom, see A. Morganto editor,North American Review, Sept. 1, 1915,reel 2824, FrankCollection; MariettaJournal and Courier,Aug. 20, 1915,p. 6; Madisonian,July 16, 1915,p. 4; ibid., Aug. 20, 1915,p. 4. The NewnanHerald sympathetically quoted editorials approving of or apologizingfor Frank's lynching from nine small-townGeorgia papers. Newnan Herald, Aug. 27, 1915,p. 1. See also P. A. Blanchardto Slaton,n.d., folder 10, box 45, SlatonCollection: "delays and miscarriagesof justiceIS THE CAUSEof nearlyevery occurance of mob violence.... Lawyers,tecnicalities of thelaw, Newspapers for hire, officers for sale: theseare the witheringcurse ofour land." Another anticommutation writer asserted: "The majorityof the citizens of Georgia are wornthread- bareover the way this case has been handled,and if . .. we are allowedto be runover[,] mistreated and trampled underfoot by the moneyedBrutes of thiscountry[,] then it is time to ShoulderArms and demand [justice]at the muzzle of our Guns."Smoke to Slaton,May 29, 1915,folder 1, box 35, ibid. 60 Omega, Georgia,petition, n.d., folder1, box 35, SlatonCollection. Other petitioners maintained that the commutationhad "seta dangerousprecedent which will tend to promoteanarchy and increasemob law.""Citizens ofTroup County" to Slaton,telegram, June 24, 1915,reel 2, FrankCorrespondence. The cleareststatement of the dangersof commutationargued that when juries could be overriddenand classjustice enthroned, "the bedrock principlesof good governmentis destroyedand obedienceto law and good moralscan no longerbe fostered.... the strongarm of the law . . . is our onlyprotection and hope forsociety in the future."J. D. Chasonto Slaton, May31, 1915, folder 10, box 45, SlatonCollection. Another stated that commutation would "thwart the . .. Courts, to whichalone we can lookfor protection." L. D. McGregorto R. E. Davison,June 1, 1915,folder 5, box49, ibid. "I am fearful,"wrote another, "that we are now borderingon anarchy."J. E. Stembridgeto Slaton,June 21, 1915, folder4, box 45, ibid. Anotherexplained that having the courts"sustained . . . is our onlyhope in the future." A. B. Cooke to Mrs.John M. Slaton,June 3, 1915,folder 4, box 45, ibid. The frequentuse of phrasessuch as "ouronly hope" to appeal forstern justice underscores the writers'perception that their society was undergoing a transition,whose outcome appeared as uncertainas it was ominousto thosewho feltthey had somethingto lose. Fordefenses of the lynchingin theseterms, see Sessionsto A. W. Knapp, Aug. 27, 1915,folder 22, box 35, ibid.; W. E. Millicanto Slaton,Aug. 19, 1915,reel 2, FrankCorrespondence. 61 T. B. Hogan to editor,Augusta Chronicle, July 28, 1915,p. 4. Anotherwrote that if Frank'ssentence were commuted,"if there shall be leftin Georgia,men wholove their wives, their daughters, and theirstate, they will wipe out, withgun-powder and leaden bull, the stainon Georgia'sname, that she didn'thave men enoughto The Leo FrankCase Reconsidered 945

JamesG. Woodward,the labor-backed mayor of Atlanta, voiced the inaccurate but eminentlyuseful white apologia for lynching: "when it comesto a woman'shonor, thereis no limitwe will not go to avengeand protectit." This cultureof "honor" had materialroots in the historicalrole of patriarchalauthority in the household economiesof plantation slavery and yeomanfarming in thepreindustrial South. It drewits emotionalpower from the intersectionof whitesupremacy and female subordination.It was a profoundlyreactionary creed, in thatit aimed to buttress both hierarchiesagainst the levelingpotential of social change. Throughthe lynchingof Frank,it scoreda symbolictriumph over the emergingculture of "Mammon"associated with industrial capitalism, by meting out honor's"ultimate punishment"(death) forhonor's "ultimate offense" (rape).62 The reactionarypopulist resolution of the case also had a moretangible impact on the state'spublic life,sparking turmoil reminiscent of the 1890s.Criticism of Frank'slynching led one countryeditor to explodethat "the common people" were "tiredof havingorders dished out to themby a bunchof kid glovepoliticians and cityeditors." The editordenounced Frank's supporters as "the same gangthat has practicedgag-rule for so long . . . thathas riddenroughshod over the people ... thatstole the electionfrom Watson" in 1894 and crushedthe Populistmovement forwhich he thencampaigned. The scale of suchrage, which involved not merely polemicalattacks but also crowdsthreatening Jewish businesses and burningthe governorin effigy,terrified elite Georgians. "You can haveno conceptionof the situ- ation [here],"Frank's attorney Luther Z. Rosserinformed an associateafter the lynching."Public opinion has neverbeen so wild,so unreasonable,and so savage"; "thehatred and bitternesshere now is inconceivable."The unrestunleashed by the commutationand the lynchingupset the state'seconomy and endangeredits prospectsfor outside investment. It also delivereda severeblow to the ambitions ofthe urban political elite with which Rosser, like Slaton, was associated. This group had no doubt about the cause of theirpredicament. "The real cause of all the

protecther courts and herwomen." Donald Clarkto Slaton,May 25, 1915,folder 10, box 45, SlatonCollection. The editorof one countrypaper, a reactionarypopulist, insisted that only fear of lynchingkept would-be rapists at bay.Madisonian, Sept. 13, 1915,p. 4. Contemporaryantilynching activists and historianshave noted that despite evidencethat only a fractionof lynchings involved allegations of rape, the apologia that lynching was in retribution forrape endured.See Ida B. Wells-Barnett,On Lynchings(New York,1969), 87-88; WalterWhite, Rope and Faggot:A BiographyofJudge Lynch (New York,1929), 16-17,54-55, 65-66, 82; ArthurF. Raper,The Tragedy ofLynching(Chapel Hill, 1933),9, 20, 50;Johnson,Along this Way, 329-30, 365-66; Hall,Revoltagainst Chivalry, 146-49; GeorgeM. Fredrickson,The Black Image in the WhiteMind. TheDebate on Afro-AmericanCharacter and Destiny,1817-1914 (New York,1971), 274, 282; Ayers,Vengeance andJustice, 237. 62 ForJamesG. Woodward'sremark, see AtlantaConstitution, Aug. 19, 1915,reel 2824, FrankCollection. Cf. theincoming governor of Georgia, Nathaniel Harris, on Frank'slynching: "there is somethingthat unbalances men herein the South wherewomen are concerned. . . thatdestroys men's ability and evenwillingness to do cold and exactjustice." New YorkTimes, Aug. 20, 1915,p. 4, reel 2825, ibid. Cf. D. M. Parker,of Baxley,Georgia, to editor,New Republic,Aug. 7, 1915,p. 23. See also Harris,Autobiography, 363. Severalanti-Frank writers, notablyWatson, posed theconflict over commutation in termsof "money" versus "manhood" or "honor." For other examples,see H. J. Sandlinto PrisonCommissioners, June 2, 1915,folder 14, box 35, SlatonCollection; J. P. Ber- rongto Slaton,May 15, 1915,folder 10, box 45, ibid.; C. E. Parkerto Slaton,June 21, 1915,folder 4, ibid. Perhaps the intenseconcern with the loss or "sale" of honorand thefrequent use of the metaphorof prostitutionamong Frankopponents reflected anxiety over their loss of independence and controlas a resultof the increasing domina- tion of the marketover their lives. 946 TheJournal of AmericanHistory December1991 presenttrouble is TomWatson," as Rossersummed up the consensus.The conclu- sion appeared simple: "Georgia [has] to put her foot down on Watson. . . . [to] crushhim as a politicalpower for all time in thisstate."63 The state'sleaders failed utterly in thisendeavor, their inability to reestablishhe- gemonya measureof the potencyof the conflictsunleashed by the Frankcase. Ratherthan destroying Watson, they themselves suffered stinging reverses. Slaton's commutationof Frank'ssentence proved the end of a once-promisingpolitical career.Watson's candidate for governor,Leo Frank'sprosecutor Hugh Manson Dorsey,swept the polls in the primariesafter Frank was lynched,trouncing his establishment-backedrivals in one ofthe largest electoral victories in Georgia'shistory.Although the resultsstunned elite observers, no one had anydoubt thatthe Frankcase had made Dorseygovernor. Rebuffed at the polls,Watson's opponents fellback on morecircuitous strategies to underminehis influence, including having himprosecuted by the federalgovernment on chargesof obscenityfor his political journalismand tryingto expelhim from the state Democratic party. These behind- the-scenesefforts, too, yieldedonly humiliating defeats for their orchestrators, as Watsontapped an undreamed-ofreservoir of popularsupport that shielded him fromtheir power and withina fewyears catapulted him to a seatin theUnited States Senate.From this august post, he woulddefend the secondKu Klux Klan fromits critics.This organization, whose might by the mid-1920s surpassed that of any other right-wingmovement in Americanhistory, gained directimpetus from Watson's agitationin the Frankcase. In short,although the victoryproved pyrrhic - in the long run quite tragic- for many of theirsupporters, the forcesof reactionary populismhad scoreda significanttriumph over their establishment adversaries, the consequencesof whichwould resoundfor years."4

Therewere many reasons why the potentconflicts involved in the Frankcase took thedirection they ultimately did. Cases offemale sexual victimization, in partbe- causeof the reality of women's vulnerability in oursociety, may be particularlyprone

63La Grange[Georgia] Graphic, Feb. 24, 1916,folder 14, box 45, SlatonCollection; Rosser to B. Z. Phillips, Aug. 21, Aug. 25, 1915,folder 3, box 49, ibid.; AugustaChronicle, Sept. 30, 1915,p. 7; ibid.,June 22, 1915,p. 1; Harris,Autobiography, 356-61; Dinnerstein,Leo FrankCase, 131-33;Rosser to Slaton,Sept. 1, 1915,folder 3, box 49, SlatonCollection; Rosser to Phillips,Sept. 15, 1915,ibid. See also Editorto JosephM. Brown,Aug. 4, 1915,folder 11, box 35, ibid. ThomasLoyless, the editorof the Augusta Chronicle, drew the same conclusions and editorializedagainst Watson single-mindedly in ensuingmonths; the battle won himmyriad letters of hearty supportfrom elite Georgians-and of iratedisdain from more ordinary residents. "Augusta Chronicle,Oct. 3, 1915,sec. C, p. 6; ibid., Sept. 14, 1916,p. 1; ibid., Sept. 16, 1916,p. 4. See also Phillipsto Jacob Schiff, May 17, 1916,folder 3, box 49, SlatonCollection; E. F. Dumas to Brown,May 4, 1914, folder2, box 3, JosephMackey Brown Papers (Atlanta Historical Society, Atlanta, Ga.); Dinnerstein,Leo Frank Case, 159. Forexamples of the effortsagainst Tom Watson and his support,see AugustaChronicle, Feb. 4, 1916, p. 5; ibid., Feb. 6, 1916,sec. C, p. 4; ibid., Feb. 13, 1916,p. 5; ibid., Feb. 18, 1916,p. 1; ibid., Feb. 21, 1916, p. 4; Rosserto Slaton,Sept. 1, 1915,folder 3, box 49, SlatonCollection; La Grange[Georgia] Graphic, Feb. 14, 1916,folder 12, box 45, ibid.; Talbotten[Georgia] New Era,folder 14, ibid. The obscenityprosecution is described in FredD. Ragan,"Obscenity or Politics?Tom Watson, Anti-Catholicism, and theDepartment ofJustice," Georgia HistoricalQuarterly, 70 (Spring1986), 17-46. On Watson'scampaign and conductin the Senate,see Woodward, TomWatson, 451-86. On the Klan's gainsfrom the Frankcase, see ibid., 446; and Dinnerstein,Leo FrankCase, 149-50. TheLeo FrankCase Reconsidered 947 to conservativemanipulation and repressivepanaceas. Then, too, other features of contemporarysouthern life made a reactionaryoutcome more likely: the region's repressivepolitical economy, the racialdivisions that underminedcoherent class loyalties,the hold ofpetty-producer political and culturaltraditions on the indus- triallabor forcethen in the processof formation,and not least,the swayof the demagogicpoliticians that the one-party South produced in abundance,who used populistrhetoric to gain supportbut opposed genuineworking-class politics and politicalradicalism. The keypoint for this article, however, is thatthe Frankcase couldnever have incited the passions it did withoutchanges in femalebehavior and familyrelations as the context,and withoutthe chargedissues of sexualityand powerbetween the sexesand generationsas the trigger.65 That beingthe case, the hypothesesconfirmed here could be applied to other, analogousmovements and episodes.Certainly the Frankcase, like anysignificant historicalevent, was in somerespects singular. Yet if the context and formwere distinct,the prominence of genderand sexualthemes was byno meansunique. One of the mosthotly contested issues in Americanpolitics north and southin these yearswas Prohibition, a movement suffused with such themes. Nor was Tom Watson theonly politician to harnessthe emotions revealed in theFrank case toward racist, restorationistends; many of his contemporariesproved equally adept. Similarly, the Ku Klux Klan ofthe 1920sblended populist appeals, vitriolic racism, and militant sexualconservatism. For their part, the white Citizens' Councils later organized to combatthe civil rights movement found the specter of "socialequality" and racial "amalgamation"their most effective rallying cry. In our owntime, the New Right has transformedthe terms of debate in UnitedStates politics by using a populistic, familialidiom to inciteopposition to abortionrights, affirmative action, and the welfarestate. Without discounting the importantdifferences between these phe- nomena,one may yet note suggestiveparallels with the patternof reactionary populismhere described. In each case, genderand sexualthemes played a critical rolein mobilizinga massfollowing for a reactionarypolitical agenda put forward in the name of "the people."66

65 On the availabilityof cases of women'ssexual victimization for conservative manipulation, see JudithR. Walkowitz,Prostitution and VictorianSociety: Women, Class, and theState (Cambridge, Eng., 1980); andJudith R. Walkowitz,"Jack the Ripper and theMyth of Male Violence,"Feminist Studies, 8 (Fall 1982),543-76. See also DuBois and Gordon,"Seeking Ecstasy on the Battlefield."On southernpoliticians' use of populistrhetoric, see Kousser,Shaping of Southern Politics, 80, 233-37. Forpopulist rhetoric used towardexplicitly procapitalist, anti- radicalends, see Tom Watson,Socialists and Socialism(Thomson, Ga., 1910).For the antiradical,anti-working class positionsof leadingWatson allies in the Frankcase, see the campaignbrochure by Hugh M. Dorsey,The Record:Upon WhichGovernor Hugh M. DorseyAsks YourSupport for US. Senator(Atlanta, 1920), esp. 8-9, HughManson Dorsey folder, File II, NamesSection (General Library, Georgia Department of Archives and History); and the scoresof diatribesagainst organized labor, couched in racist,populist terms, by Joseph Mackey Brown, BrownPapers. 66 On therole of concerns about familylife and genderin theagitation against liquor, see NormanH. Clark, DeliverUs from Evil: An Interpretationof American Prohibition (New York,1976); and BarbaraLeslie Epstein, ThePolitics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperancein Nineteenth-CenturyAmerica (Middletown, 1981).V. 0. Key,Jr., with Alexander Heard, Southern Politics in Stateand Nation (New York,1949); Joel Wil- liamson,The Crucibleof Race: Black/WhiteRelations in the AmericanSouth since Emancipation(New York, 1984).For the interplayof populism, racism, and sexualconservatism in thesecond Klan, see MacLean,"Behind the Mask of Chivalry";and CharlesAlexander, The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest([Lexington, Ky.], 1965). 948 TheJournal of AmericanHistory December1991

Othershave rightfullydrawn attention to the classand race dynamicsof such movements.The Frankcase, however,shows that to fullycomprehend them, we mustalso considerchanging relations between men and womenand parentsand childrenas vitalcomponents of the perceived social crises to whichthose movements respond.And to explaintheir powerful appeal, we mustexamine the role of gender and sexualityin theirideologies. "The publicand theprivate worlds are inseparably connected,"Virginia Woolf long ago pointedout; "the tyranniesand servilitiesof theone arethe tyrannies and servilitiesof the other." It is timeto bridgethe artificial barriersbetween women's history and laborhistory, between family history and po- liticalhistory, so thatwe may graspthe systematiclinks between them.67 In the writingof history,as in politics,we ignorethe connectionsat our peril.

"Whenever,wherever, race relations are discussed," as LillianSmith put it,"sex moves arm in armwith the concept of segregation."Smith, Killers of the Dream, 124. On thecouncils, see Neil R. McMillen,The Citizens'Councils: OrganizedResistance to the SecondReconstruction, 1954-64 (Urbana,1971). For perceptive early interpretations of the New Right,see Linda Gordonand Allen Hunter,"Sex, Familyand the New Right:Anti-Feminism as a PoliticalForce," RadicalAmerica, 11-12 (Nov. 1977-Feb.1978), 9-25; and RosalindPollack Petchesky, "Antiabor- tion,Antifeminism, and the Rise of the New Right,"Feminist Studies, 7 (Summer1981), 206-46. 67 VirginiaWoolf, Three Guineas (1938; reprint,New York,1966). See alsoJoan Kelly, "The Doubled Vision ofFeminist Theory: A Postscriptto the'Women and Power'Conference," Feminist Studies, 5 (Spring1979), 222-23.