In a 1924 murder trial that captured the nation’s attention, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks. The trial of Leopold and Loeb captured the nation’s attention for a number of reasons. First, they were both teenagers. To many observers, the fact that two teenagers would plan and carry out a murder as cold-blooded as the murder of Bobby Franks served as an indictment of modern youth. At a time when many Americans were seeking advice on rearing children in the new corporate-industrial age, the fact that Leopold and Loeb came from wealthy families demonstrated to many that overindulged youth posed a threat to society. The trial captured the nation’s attention because Clarence Darrow, the country’s best-known trial attorney, represented the defendants. The trial was also significant because Darrow used the testimony of psychologists in arguing that the two had lived abnormal upbringings that shaped them into murderers. By doing so he successfully avoided the death penalty.
Leopold and Loeb were highly intelligent teenagers who graduated from college before they were 18 years old. Together they committed a series of crimes ranging from petty thefts to auto thefts. They apparently planned to murder someone for the intellectual challenge of literally getting away with murder. Planning the killing without a specific victim in mind, they developed a plan and waited for a victim to show up on the scheduled day. On May 21, 1924, Bobby Franks simply ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was a neighbor of both Leopold and Loeb. On his way home from a football game at school, Franks accepted a ride from them. Although it was never determined for certain which of the two killed Franks, one of them knocked him unconscious with ether and beat him to death with the handle of a chisel. The two killers then left his body in a drainpipe in a wilderness area south of Chicago.
Leopold and Loeb then attempted to make the killing look like a kidnapping by contacting Franks’ family to demand a ransom. Before they could follow through on the kidnapping plot, however, Franks’s body was discovered. During the manhunt for the killers, Leopold and Loeb even went so far as to help two friends who were journalists try to track down the killers. The case broke when a pair of eyeglasses was found at the scene that turned out to belong to Leopold. Faced with the overwhelming evidence against them, the pair pleaded guilty.
Clarence Darrow took the case partly because he opposed the death penalty and saw it as an opportunity for a public forum to argue against it. The defendants pleaded guilty in order to avoid a trial by jury, which Darrow believed would end in the death sentence. Before a judge in the sentencing hearing, he introduced lengthy testimony by psychologists. Their testimonies were the first time that many of the emerging psychological theories were introduced into a court of law. They testified that Leopold and Loeb suffered through abnormal childhoods that included excessive fantasizing, excessive reading of detective fiction, drinking alcohol at an early age, associating with people much older than themselves, and, in the case of Leopold, sexual abuse by a governess and the death of his mother when he was 14. Darrow did not argue that Leopold and Loeb were insane due to their upbringing. He argued that, due to their childhoods, they developed abnormally and therefore should not be sentenced to death for their crime. The judge agreed that their upbringing mitigated the circumstances of their crime and sentenced them to life in prison. Richard Loeb was killed in prison in 1936. Nathan Leopold was paroled in 1957 and died of natural causes in 1971.
Further reading: Paula S. Fass, “Making and Remaking an Event: The Leopold and Loeb Case in American Culture,” Journal of American History 80:3 (December 1993): 919-951; Hal Higdon, Leopold and Loeb: The Crime of the Century (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999).
—Michael Hartman
Lindbergh, Charles Augustus (1902-1974) aviator As the pilot who flew the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean on May 20-21, 1927, in his airplane The Spirit of St. Louis, Charles Lindbergh was heralded as the “Lone Eagle” and “Lucky Lindy.” He gained international renown for his solo flight. Lindbergh was born February 4, 1902, in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in Little Falls, Minnesota. His father was Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Sr., a lawyer and U. S. congressman from Minnesota from 1907 to 1917. His mother was Evangeline Land Lodge.
Interested in mechanics as a boy, Lindbergh attended the University of Wisconsin’s engineering program for two years but left it to enroll in a flying school in Lincoln, Nebraska. He then became a barnstormer pilot, performing stunts for audiences at fairs, before he joined the U. S. Army as a pilot in the Army Air Service Reserve. After additional training, he graduated from flight school and transported mail between St. Louis and Chicago for the Robertson Aircraft Corporation.
Lindbergh’s ambition was to make the solo transatlantic flight. Nine St. Louis businessmen whom he persuaded to support the effort financed his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis. He sought to win a prize of $25,000 for one flight offered by New York City hotel owner, Raymond Orteig. The winner would be the first aviator to fly nonstop from New York to Paris. Lindbergh helped design the plane, which successfully made the record-setting trip in 20 hours and 21 minutes. “Lucky Lindbergh” landed at Le Bourget Field near Paris to be greeted by thousands of cheering fans. He became an instant hero. When he came home to America, he was aboard the USS Memphis, and President Calvin Coolidge welcomed him home personally. Four
Charles Augustus Lindbergh standing beside the Spirit of St. Louis (Library of Congress)
Million other people greeted him for a New York parade before his return to St. Louis for a rest. Lindbergh was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Lindbergh’s fame allowed him to promote both aeronautics and international goodwill. He wrote a book about his flight entitled We, referring to the author, his plane, and their experiences on the transatlantic flight. Lindbergh then traveled throughout the United States promoting aeronautics for the Guggenheim Fund. In a three-month nationwide tour, he flew the Spirit of Louis. He visited 49 states and 92 cities and gave 147 speeches.
Lindbergh became interested in the research of the scientist Robert Goddard, who was conducting experimental research on missiles, satellites, and rockets. He drew the attention of the Guggenheims to Goddard’s research efforts in order to help him in funding further projects. Lindbergh also flew to various Latin American countries in 1927 fostering goodwill between America and Latin America. It was on the Latin America tour that he met Anne Morrow, daughter of the American ambassador to Mexico. He married Morrow in 1929. After teaching her to fly, the couple undertook flying expeditions throughout the world.
After the kidnapping and death of their son, Charles, Jr., the Lindberghs fled to Europe to seek privacy and safety. While in Europe, Lindbergh was invited to tour various aircraft industries. He was particularly impressed with the advanced aircraft industry of Nazi Germany. After returning to the United States, Lindbergh spoke out against American intervention in any European war, supported pro-Hitler German-American groups, and criticized the policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After Roosevelt denounced him, Lindbergh resigned his commission in the Army Air Corps. Refraining from his non-interventionist activity after Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh once again undertook military duties. In 1944, he flew about 50 combat missions in the Pacific despite his status as a civilian.
Lindbergh spent the rest of his life as a consultant, writer, and traveler. In 1954, President Eisenhower restored his commission and appointed him brigadier general in the U. S. Air Force. Lindbergh worked for Pan American World Airways advising on jet purchases, and eventually helped design the Boeing 747. Before dying of cancer in 1974, he spoke out for the conservation movement. He was particularly interested in campaigning for the protection of humpback and blue whales. He lived at this time of his life in Maui, Hawaii, where he published his collection of writings entitled The Autobiography of Values.
See also aviation.
Further reading: Scott Berg, Lindbergh (New York: G. P Putnam, 1998).
—Annamarie Edelen
World History
