Culture Shock: Henry Alexander, Leo Frank, and the New South

Henry Alexander was given this ribbon for membership of the Demosthenian club, which he joined while at the University of Georgia in the early 1890s. Alexander’s family had lived in the south for decades and his grandfather had fought for the Confederacy. This regional lineage defined Alexander as part of the “in-group” of Southerners while he attended UGA. Later, the regional and status ties from UGA allowed Alexander privileged positions in Atlanta’s upper class, including filing the articles of incorporation for the Atlanta Art Association, now the High Museum of Art.

Pencils, including this one, were produced by the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, Georgia in the early twentieth century. In 1913 the factory became national news when a worker, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, was found murdered there. The manager, Leo Frank, a young Jewish man from New York, was accused. Frank was convicted on August 25, 1913, based mainly on evidence from Jim Conley, the African American sweeper at the factory. Atlanta native Henry Alexander then joined Frank’s defense to work on appealing the conviction.

The New York Evening Sun published this piece on Leo Frank’s death at the hands of a lynch mob. Frank died on August 17, 1915, only months after his communication and weeks after a knife attack by another inmate. Northern newspapers had reported on the entirety of the Frank case, as northern Jewish communities tried to raise awareness of Frank’s plight. Unfortunately, these articles were seen as ‘interference’ or as proof that Frank was backed by northern Jewish industrialists looking to exploit Southern labor and values. The coverage and often condemnation of Georgia only served to inflame tensions.

In 1918, after serving as a Captain during the war, Henry Alexander was awarded a WWI Cross of Military Service by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). The UDC defined what it meant to be Southern from their inception and they presented these crosses to WWI veterans descended from Confederate veterans. Through this action, they used family ties to define “Southerness,” confirming to Alexander and those around him he belonged in this identity. 

This Georgia state security questionnaire was filled out by Henry Alexander in 1954. In answer to Question 27, Alexander lists himself as part of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Alexander was not just a local Atlantan, he was a generational Southerner. Alexander’s family had been present as residents of the South for generations, his grandfather fought for the Confederates. The different public responses to Alexander and Leo Frank are partly explained by this regionalism, Alexander was southern and Leo Frank northern.

This article describes Henry Alexander’s theory that the infamous murder notes of the Leo Frank case were written in the basement of the factory. After joining the case, Alexander became focused on notes found near the body of Mary Phagan. They describe a tall African American man and claim he committed the crime. In the first trial, Jim Conley, the African American sweeper, testified that Frank had dictated the notes to him in Frank’s office. The article presents as fact Alexander’s conclusions that the notes were never in Frank’s office, on evidence that they matched a previous employee’s notepads, all of which were stored in the basement.

This letter, written by Henry Alexander to Leo Frank a month after Frank’s commutation and a month before his death, strikes a hopeful tone. Alexander reports to Frank on public opinion surrounding the case and says that he has sent the supplies Frank requested. Alexander was acting as a lawyer keeping his client informed about the public opinion of his case. However, Alexander also wrote the letter in a familiar manner, mentioning that his mother donated some of the supplies sent to Frank, and apologizing for keeping visitors away. Alexander was deeply involved in the case as work, while Frank’s situation became personal.

In this letter, local journalist Tom Watson is mentioned as an agent of antisemitism and an object of deep concern. Watson’s popular assertion that wealthy northern Jewish migrants brought industrialism to southern cities spoke to the frustration Georgians felt at the confusion of a changing economy and the loss of traditional values and gender roles. Through Watson Georgians had a cause for their economic anxiety: Northern Jewish industrialists. The fear this hatred caused in the Jewish community, which had been well-established, lasted for decades, and led to many families moving.

This postcard depicts the ‘rebirth’ of the Klu Klux Klan on top of Stone Mountain outside Atlanta on November 25, 1915. The men who had lynched Leo Frank three months before participated in the revival. Antisemitism was a main tenant of the revived Klan which was supported by the lingering Antisemitism revealed during the trial. This postcard illustrates Atlanta’s struggle with the idea of the “new South” and the violence people were willing to enact to define and perpetuate it.

This letter was sent by the ADL to a local rabbi in 1958. The ADL was formed by attorney Sigmund Livingston in 1913 as the Leo Frank trial was becoming national news. It was the antisemitism prominent throughout Frank’s trial that illustrated to the Jewish community and Livingston why an organization like the ADL was so necessary. Their goals, to foster equality for those who fall outside the “American norm” and to eradicate discrimination were a response, in part, to the trauma of the Frank case.

 It is no surprise that the murder of Leo Frank affected those who loved him the most. In this letter, dated a month after Leo’s death, his wife Lucille thanks Rebecca Alexander, lawyer Henry Alexander’s mother, for her kindness. Lucille’s letter is full of sadness but also hope that her husband’s name will be cleared, echoing Leo’s final assertions of innocence. She also seems to be, as others were at the time, surrounding herself with the Jewish community in Atlanta, putting her hope in those who loved Leo Frank.

In the year after Leo Frank’s murder, Henry Alexander enlisted in the military to fight in WWI. Only he knew why he enlisted, he could have wanted to continue the family legacy of service, perhaps he responded to the call for patriotism like so many other American men. Perhaps it was the feeling of fear, or frustration, that so many in Atlanta’s Jewish community were feeling that led Alexander to sign up. His service was proof not only of his loyalty, but of his right to continue inhabiting his place as a “true” Southern man.

This article describes Henry Alexander’s involvement with bringing historical markers to Georgia, but it also outlines his status as a popular community figure in Atlanta. Alexander had served as a president of the Atlanta Historical Society, was chairman of the Georgia Educational Exchange’s historical committee, was still a prominent lawyer, and had drafted the legislation creating the Georgia Historical Commission. If anyone had held ill-will towards him for his involvement in the Leo Frank case, he had surmounted it.

This obituary, published in The Southern Israelite, gives a brief overview of Henry Alexander’s life, naming him a “pioneer Atlanta communal leader.” The obituary lists his many accomplishments, Alexander is noted as a native of Atlanta, and the Leo Frank case is related as a "sensational murder." Alexander is represented as both a leader in the Jewish community and the overall community of Atlanta.