progressive era to World War II (1900-1945)

The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) has just developed a new educator resource page about the Leo Frank case, one of Georgia’s most notorious and highly publicized legal cases that ended in Frank’s kidnapping and lynching on August 17, 1915.

These resources has been chosen as part of the Georgia K-12 social studies standard SS8H7d:
Identify the ways individuals, groups, and events attempted to shape the New South (d). Examine antisemitism and the resistance to racial equality exemplified in the Leo Frank case.

Leo Max Frank (1884-1915), supervisor at the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta, was convicted for the 1913 murder of Mary Phagan, a thirteen-year-old child laborer who traveled into town from Marietta. Frank was sentenced to death after a highly sensationalized trial and appeals process that were gripped by mob violence in Georgia, much of which was heightened by sensational news coverage.

The Frank case and its extrajudicial aftermath led to both the twentieth-century reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan and the establishment of the Anti-Defamation League.

The landing page brings together:

Resources documenting one of Georgia’s most significant twentieth-century events marked by intense social, cultural, political, geographic, and economic tensions.
A broad range of archival materials, digitized historic newspapers, digital exhibits, and scholarship documenting one of Georgia’s most significant twentieth-century events marked by intense social, cultural, political, geographic, and economic tensions that highlight the injustices of the case and underscore the real-life impact of antisemitism, violence, and other forms of hatred.
- Digitized archival materials and family papers of Leo Frank and his attorneys document the persistent advocacy of the Atlanta and worldwide Jewish communities that supported Frank against the hatred he and his defenders faced, at significant personal risk, as well as the prevalent antisemitism in the legal system, law enforcement, popular culture, and the press.
The newest collection of digitized materials on Leo Frank comes from the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum and documents the cultural, political, social, geographic, and economic diversity of Georgia and the cultural struggle between Jews and non-Jews, highlight the social tensions of the early 1900s in Georgia, and emphasize the political strife experienced by those who stood up for Leo Frank’s innocence.
A new article in the New Georgia Encyclopedia about the Atlanta Georgian illustrates how the Leo Frank case drew national attention, thanks in no small part to reporting in newspapers like the Hearst-owned Atlanta Georgian, which sensationalized the story daily with dramatic headlines and photos between 1913 and 1915, and Tom Watson’s newspaper the Jeffersonian, that polarized Americans, all the while producing controversial and historically significant examples of yellow journalism in United States history.
- All coverage of Leo Frank in The Atlanta Georgian from 1913-1915, and content from The Jeffersonian from 1913-1915 are available in our Georgia Historic Newspapers portal.
Educator resource poster SS8H7d, featuring:
- Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL.
- Rights: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about/#rights
- Accessibility: This resource is in the public domain, designed to fit an 8.5” x 11” letter-sized sheet of paper. All content is in the public domain to ensure print accessibility for all students and educators.

#LeoFrank #EducatorsofGeorgia #GeorgiaSocialStudies #GeorgiaHistory

You can view the landing page at https://sites.google.com/view/dlg-educator-resources/home/special-events/leo-frank.

The educator resource poster for the GSE SSH87d New South/Leo Frank module is available here:

Educator resource pages for other Georgia social studies standards are available here: https://sites.google.com/view/dlg-educator-resources .

#LeoFrank #EducatorsofGeorgia #GeorgiaSocialStudies #GeorgiaHistory

Educator Resource poster SS8H7d, featuring:
Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL.
Rights: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about/#rights
Accessibility: This resource is in the public domain, designed to fit an 8.5” x 11” letter-sized sheet of paper. All content is in the public domain to ensure print accessibility for all students and educators.

The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) and the New Georgia Encyclopedia (NGE) are pleased to present Georgia Exhibits’ newest exhibition, curated by Kailey Joy McAlpin, “‘Thy Neighbor As Thyself’: The Women Who Shaped Georgia’s Civic Landscape.”

Kailey Joy McAlpin, a Ph.D. student at Georgia State University, explores Georgia’s women reformers of the Progressive Era, some of whom include Mary Latimer McLendon, Mildred Lewis Rutherford, Carrie Steele, Helen Pendleton, Lugenia Burns Hope, Jessie Daniel Ames, Selena Sloan Butler, Martha Berry, and Julia Flisch.

Photo of Lugenia Burns Hope — “Lugenia Burns Hope.” 1871/1947. February 27, 2024. Courtesy of New Georgia Encyclopedia

These women came from different class backgrounds and had different racial attitudes and practices. McAlpin uses the theme and motto “Thy Neighbor as Thyself” to center the work done by Black women during the Progressive Era, both with and without the support of their white Progressive counterparts.

McAlpin’s work dedicates itself to bringing the differences between white and Black women reformers to light. She explains that access to materials, resources, and support was much more abundant to white women than their Black peers, not to mention the actual risk of life and limb posed to Black women, particularly with regard to suffrage. She states:

“While Black suffragists in the North could form organizations and advocate for voting rights, the hostile racial climate of the South and fear of violent retaliation from Southern whites kept many Black women from making public demands for suffrage. Despite the looming threat of assault and death, some Black women did publicly advocate for suffrage, and examples of Black suffrage organizations have been recovered in Tuskegee, Alabama, Charleston, South Carolina, and Memphis, Tennessee. While evidence of Black women’s suffrage in the Jim Crow South has often been hidden from the historical record, there was doubtless support for voting rights that took place behind closed doors in spaces removed from white surveillance.”

For better or worse, the engagement of these women and their respective organizations with their day’s pressing political issues and social concerns had a tremendous impact on voting access, child labor laws, rural education, public health legislation, racial inequality and injustice, and other social causes.

Photo of Selena Sloan Butler — Box 7, Folder 4, Selena Sloan Butler papers, Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African-American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System.. “Photographs, Selena Sloan Butler, undated.” 1886/1893. February 27, 2024. Courtesy of Auburn Avenue Research Library on African-American Culture and History

Each year, DLG and NGE staff and graduate student interns curate Georgia Exhibits exhibitions to shed new light on understudied corners of the state’s history and showcase the remarkable breadth and depth of authoritative resources and historical content in the DLG and NGE. We offer all of these resources freely online.

You can view the exhibition at https://georgia-exhibits.galileo.usg.edu/spotlight/women-reformers and the rest of our Georgia Exhibits at https://georgia-exhibits.galileo.usg.edu.

K-12 educators take note: This exhibit serves our Georgia K-12 social studies audience by aligning with the Georgia Social Studies Standards of Excellence (GSE) standard SSUSH13: Evaluate efforts to reform American society and politics in the Progressive Era.

#HistoricPreservation #ProgressiveEra #Equality #WomensReform #CivilRights