"The Case of Mary Phagan,'A Story About the Story of a Murder': Constructing a Crime"

On April 27, 1913, the body of thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan was discovered in the basement of her workplace in Atlanta, Georgia. Over the course of the following two years, her employer, Leo Frank, would be tried and convicted for her murder. Another employee, Jim Conley, a black janitor originally implicated in the crime, provided the evidence used to convict Frank. In my thesis, I explain the multiple identities created to describe the victim and her accused murderer(s). Press reports, trial records, and secondary historical accounts of the crime all reveal a fascination with the young female victim and a desire to solve the mystery of her death. By examining personal identity as a cultural construction, I re-evaluate the manner in which we define and describe crime. Phagan's murder became a cautionary tale, a narrative of sexual danger within the model city of the New South. My thesis illustrates the importance of understanding murder as an event occurring within and shaped by a social context. The murder of Mary Phagan and the Frank case demonstrate how we ascribe meaning to tragic events and how variables such as race, class, gender, and age affect the outcome of criminal procedures.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Department dc:contributor.department

History

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Shelton, Regan Virginia

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Jones, Kathleen W.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Bunch-Lyons, Beverly
• Shumsky, Neil Larry

• Jim Conley
• Leo Frank
• Mary Phagan
• gender and crime
• homicide

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-04272000-09560004

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/42295