The Leo Frank Trial Collection at Brandeis University documents one of the most notorious capital-punishment cases in early 20th-century America. Leo Frank, a pencil-factory superintendent in Atlanta, Georgia, and a northern Jew, was at the center of a murder trial and lynching that continues to reverberate a hundred years later. Leo Frank's trial and murder led to both the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the founding of the Anti-Defamation League, and his story is the subject of the Broadway musical Parade. This collection was donated to the University in 1961 by Harold E. and Maxine Marcus, and its digitization is funded by the Brandeis National Committee's Honoring our History campaign. View materials from the collection online.
Of particular note is correspondence between Leo Frank and his wife, Lucille, as well as correspondence to and from Georgia Governor John M. Slaton and Frank's lawyer Luther Z. Rosser. The collection notably chronicles the national attention surrounding the case, with materials ranging from letters of support and petitions on behalf of Frank, to condemnations and death threats against Governor Slaton. Read more about the collection and view the finding aid for the Leo FrankTrial Collection held by Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections.