Atlanta (Ga.) – the DLG B

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: The day book. [volume] (Chicago, IL), 03 June 1915. — 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 title page of the first edition of the May 22, 1917, issue of the Atlanta Georgian reports on the destruction caused by the Great Atlanta Fire of 1917 and the city’s effort to control the damage.

This issue marks the 3 millionth page digitized by the Digital Library of Georgia.

The newspaper circulated daily from 1906 to 1939, was the first Hearst-owned newspaper in the South, and is the most prominent example of sensationalist yellow journalism in Georgia. In its first year of publication, the paper infamously printed stories intended to inflame racial tensions that contributed to the start of the Atlanta Race Massacre of 1906.

Famed newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst purchased the Atlanta Georgian in 1912. Under his ownership, the paper printed increasingly scandalous headlines and illustrations that dramatized local crimes, including its coverage of the Leo Frank case in Atlanta.

The digitization of this title was funded through a grant from an anonymous donor as part of their mission to provide resources that promote a greater understanding of Georgia’s history during this important period.

We have developed an online press kit, available at bit.ly/dlg3million which includes:

An image, description, and link out to our 3 millionth page;
A link to our press release;

An interactive map showing which cities and counties in Georgia have newspapers digitized by the DLG;
Eleven impact stories that demonstrate how digitized historic newspapers have helped people find what they were looking for;
A link to Covers Dixie Like the Dew”: A History of Newspaper Journalism in Georgia
A blog post of the 5 favorite newspaper pages written by DLG staff;
Links to instructional videos on how to use the Georgia Historic Newspapers site.

Since 2007, the DLG has provided access to the state’s historic newspapers, with the majority having been digitized from microfilm produced by the Georgia Newspaper Project (GNP).

With the launch of the Georgia Historic Newspapers (GHN) site in July 2017, the DLG has maintained that tradition by bringing together new and existing resources into a single, consolidated website where newspapers dating from 1763-2023 are full-text searchable and can be browsed by city, title, date, keyword, or region.

Annually, DLG digitizes over 400,000 historic newspaper pages with funding from GALILEO, the University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Public Library Service, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the R. J. Taylor, Jr. Foundation, and dozens of cultural heritage institutions across the state. The DLG also microfilms more than 200 current newspapers. Historic newspaper pages are consistently the most visited of any DLG site.

Researching newspaper content is critical to understanding a location’s local history, priorities, and interests. It can be an engaging way to teach younger students the value of primary sources.

The GHN includes some of the state’s earliest newspapers; important African American, Roman Catholic, and Cherokee newspapers; and issues from Georgia’s largest cities and towns, as well as an increasing number of underrepresented communities and regions.

“I’m happy to see that more of the Georgian will soon be digitized,” said Dr. Janice Hume, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications.

“Students in my media history class at UGA dig into it to learn about Atlanta in the early 20th century, the Leo Frank trial, and journalism history. They are amazed at the sheer volume of stories, the extras, and the sensationalism.”

Our 3 millionth page:

The title page of the first edition of the May 22, 1917, issue of the Atlanta Georgian reports on the destruction caused by the Great Atlanta Fire of 1917 and the city’s effort to control the damage.

Tag: Atlanta (Ga.)

The Digital Library of Georgia has made its 3 millionth digitized and full-text-searchable historic newspaper page available freely online.