One of the most moving things about this show was the fact that it was a true story. Here’s a little more about the real Leo Frank, from a Georgia history site (no longer online).
In 1913 Leo Frank, a northern Jew who had moved to Atlanta to manage a pencil factory,
was accused of murdering a 13-year old girl named Mary Phagan, who was employed at the factory.
The story of Leo Frank and Mary Phagan, on one level the story of a murder, trial, and execution, can
be seen on another level as a frightening example of the conflicts that developed out of the merging of
the agrarian and urban cultures. At the turn of the century, poor farmers facing destitute conditions in the
Georgia countryside began moving in large numbers to the cities. Urban entrepreneurs, seeing the need
for jobs, looked to the North for capital and management to build factories.
After a sensationalized trial, Leo Frank was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. He was convicted
primarily on the testimony of Jim Conley, a janitor who was initially suspected of the crime and who
changed his story several times. Governor John Slaton commuted Frank’s sentence to life imprisonment,
but on August 16, 1915, 25 armed men took Frank out of jail and hanged him.
To many, Frank was a symbol of the “foreign” exploiter making money from the labors of children. To
others, he was a scapegoat for people’s economic woes. The Frank case can be seen as an illustration
of what happens when the world is changing too fast for some people who, since they cannot alter their
circumstances, vent their frustration and anger on people or things that symbolize the change they cannot
control.
You can read a very interesting analysis of the murder and trial at Court TV’s Crime Library.