The Scopes Trial
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2. the Scope~ Kial Transcripts (1925)
2. THE SCOPE~ ~KIAL TRANSCRIPTS (1925) The spread of the fundamentalist movement during the 1920s led many states to pass laws specifically banning or restricting the teaching of evolution in public schools. In 1925, a Tennessee high-school teacher named John Scopes (1900-1970) was convinced by several like-minded evolutionists to test the legit- imacy of his own state's prohibition of evolution in its classrooms. The result was one of the most celebrated trials of the century, the so-called Monkey Trial held in Dayton, Tennessee. In the following excerpts from the trial transcripts, the main antagonists attempt to frame the question in terms of monumental so- cial and religious choices. For Scopes's defense attorney, Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), the case represented a showdown between the forces of progres- sive enlightenment and backward religious bigotry. As a famous criminal and labor attorney, Darrow reveled in courtroom confrontation and seized this op- portunity to go after fundamentalist lawmakers in one of their strongholds. The I state's case was prosecuted by perhaps the other most famous American lawyer of the day, three-time populist candidate for the presidency, William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925). In Bryan's opening speech he portrayed Darrow and other evolutionists as outside agitators, bent on overturning the will of the people of Tennessee. Though Bryan did not live to deliver the closing speech he com- posed, it is clear that he too saw the conflict in epic terms. The compatibility of science and religion proposed by the Modernist theologian Kirby Mather, whose testimony is excerpted in the third reading, did not seem to strike either the atheist Darrow or the fundamentalist Bryan as even a remote possibility, thereby ) The ScopesTrial TranscriPts(1925) 439 indicating the depth of the antagonism the issue inspired. -
The 1925 Monkey Trial
The “Monkey Trial” March 1925. • On 21st March 1925 Tennessee passed the Butler Act which stated: • That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the Story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals. Proposer of the act: John Washington Butler. Religion vs. Science. • (State Representative) John W. Butler, a Tennessee farmer and head of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, lobbied state legislatures to pass the anti-evolution law. The act is challenged. • John Thomas Scopes' involvement in the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial came about after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced that it would finance a test case challenging the constitutionality of the Butler Act if they could find a Tennessee teacher willing to act as a defendant. • Photograph of John Scopes taken one month before the trial. Opportunistic Bush Lawyers? • A band of businessmen in Dayton, Tennessee, led by engineer and geologist George Rappleyea, saw this as an opportunity to get publicity for their town and approached Scopes. • Rappleyea pointed out that while the Butler Act prohibited the teaching of human evolution, the state required teachers to use the assigned textbook, Hunter's Civic Biology (1914), which included a chapter on evolution. • Rappleyea argued that teachers were essentially required to break the law. -
The Scopes Trial, Antievolutionism, and the Last Crusade of William Jennings Bryan
University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2012 Six Days of Twenty-Four Hours: the Scopes Trial, Antievolutionism, and the Last Crusade of William Jennings Bryan Kari Lynn Edwards Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the History of Christianity Commons Recommended Citation Edwards, Kari Lynn, "Six Days of Twenty-Four Hours: the Scopes Trial, Antievolutionism, and the Last Crusade of William Jennings Bryan" (2012). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 96. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/96 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SIX DAYS OF TWENTY-FOUR HOURS: THE SCOPES TRIAL, ANTIEVOLUTIONISM, AND THE LAST CRUSADE OF WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN A Thesis presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Southern Studies The University of Mississippi by KARI EDWARDS May 2012 Copyright Kari Edwards 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT The academic study of the Scopes Trial has always been approached from a traditional legal interpretation. This project seeks to reframe the conventional arguments surrounding the trial, treating it instead as a significant religious event, one which not only altered the course of Christian Fundamentalism and the Creationist movement, but also perpetuated Southern religious stereotypes through the intense, and largely negative, nationwide publicity it attracted. Prosecutor William Jennings Bryan's crucial role is also redefined, with his denial of a strictly literal interpretation of Genesis during the trial serving as the impetus for the shift toward ultra- conservatism and young-earth Creationism within the movement after 1925. -
There Was a Great Fear of Communism That Swept Through the United States in the Years Following the Russian Revolution of 1917
Academic Literacy Skills Sample (ALST) Sample Constructed Response Item Passage A Argument of Clarence Darrow in the Case of the Communist Labor Party There was a great fear of Communism that swept through the United States in the years following the Russian Revolution of 1917. As a result, several states passed espionage acts that restricted political discussion, and radicals of all descriptions were rounded up in so-called Red Raids conducted by the attorney general’s office. Some were convicted and imprisoned; others were deported. This is the background for this particular reading passage about a trial in Chicago that took place in August, 1920. This trial involved twenty men charged under Illinois’s espionage statute with advocating the violent overthrow of the government. The charge rested on the fact that all of the defendants were members of the newly formed Communist Labor Party. The accused in the case were represented by Clarence Darrow, one of the foremost defense attorneys in the country. Throughout his career, Darrow had defended the poor and the despised against exploitation and prejudice. He defended the rights of labor unions, for example, at a time when many sought to outlaw the strike, and he was resolute in defending constitutional freedoms. The following are excerpts from Darrow’s summation to the jury. 1. Members of the jury: I have for a good many years been arguing cases in court and in my own way, as a lawyer, asking jurors to forget their prejudices and their feelings and deliver a verdict according to the evidence, uninfluenced by fear or passion or heat. -
For Sale: Historic Bridge in Jackson Park
For sale: Historic bridge in Jackson Park chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-darrow-bridge-for-sale-20171214-story.html Lolly Bowean There’s a historic bridge for sale in Jackson Park. And it’s not a con game. The Columbia Bridge, widely known as the Clarence Darrow Memorial Bridge, is to be rebuilt in 2019. But before the Chicago Department of Transportation can start construction on the new pedestrian bridge, the agency has to offer the old one to the public for possible reuse, said Mike Claffey, a spokesman for CDOT. It’s all part of the federal government’s National Environment Policy Act and Section 106 process. But recently, the issue of the bridge being sold sparked some curiosity when an advertisement offering it for sale ran in a local newspaper. “The Darrow Bridge is an important community landmark because (Clarence) Darrow was a fixture in our community,” said Louise McCurry, president of the Jackson Park Advisory Council. When she learned of the ad, she immediately jumped into activist mode to spread information in her Hyde Park community about the sale. “That bridge is the biggest link to Jackson Park, so it’s a sacred landmark,” she said. “So now to see it’s being sold? Truly fascinating.” 1/3 The Darrow Memorial Bridge, which has unique abutment walls and a storied history, is crumbling and unusable. It has been closed to cars since 2009 and to pedestrians since 2015. The structure isn’t actually going to be sold for a price, Claffey said. Rather, interested parties have to provide a proposal by 4 p.m. -
Notes Edwards V. Aguillard: Creation Science and Evolution
Notes Edwards v. Aguillard: Creation Science and Evolution - The Fall of Balanced Treatment Acts in the Public Schools "It took God only six days to create the universe - it's gonna take the court two weeks to decide if it should be taught."' I. INTRODUCTION Since Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859,2 religious fundamentalists have waged war against the book's evolu- tionary teachings.' Recognizing that the courts will not allow the teaching of evolution to be suppressed,4 fundamentalists no longer 1. Statement by an anonymous observer at the Arkansas creation-evolution trial. D. NELKIN, THE CREATION CONTROVERSY - SCIENCE OR SCRIPTURE IN THE SCHOOLS 137 (1982). 2. The theory of evolution credited to Darwin (1809-1882) is that all forms of advanced life inhabiting the earth originated as lower forms of life, which ascended to their current status in a natural selection. Note, The Constitutional Issues Surrounding the Science-Religion Conflict in Public Schools: The Anti-Evolution Controversy, 10 PEPPERDINE L. REV. 461, 463 (1983). 3. "In 1925, fundamentalists and evolutionists first clashed in court at the crimi- nal trial of John Scopes. Scopes, a Tennessee schoolteacher, was convicted of violating a state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution." Levit, Creationism, Evolution and the First Amendment: The Limits of ConstitutionallyPermissible Scientific Inquiry, 14 J.L. & EDUC. 211, 211 (1985). The law was upheld by the Tennessee Supreme Court. Scopes v. State, 154 Tenn. 105, 289 S.W. 363 (1927). 4. Forty years after the Scopes trial, the United States Supreme Court held that the prohibition of the teaching of evolution violated the first amendment. -
How William Jennings Bryan's Struggle with Social Darwinism and Legal Formalism Demythologize the Scopes Monkey Trial Kevin P
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Campbell University Law School Campbell University School of Law Scholarly Repository @ Campbell University School of Law Scholarly Works Faculty Scholarship 2004 Inherit the Myth: How William Jennings Bryan's Struggle with Social Darwinism and Legal Formalism Demythologize the Scopes Monkey Trial Kevin P. Lee Campbell University School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.campbell.edu/fac_sw Recommended Citation Kevin P. Lee, Inherit the Myth: How William Jennings Bryan's Struggle with Social Darwinism and Legal Formalism Demythologize the Scopes Monkey Trial, 33 Cap. U. L. Rev. 347 (2004). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Scholarly Repository @ Campbell University School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scholarly Works by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Repository @ Campbell University School of Law. INHERIT THE MYTH: HOW WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN'S STRUGGLE WITH SOCIAL DARWINISM AND LEGAL FORMALISM DEMYTHOLOGIZE THE SCOPES MONKEY TRIAL KEVIN P. LEE* The trial of John T. Scopes is an important milestone in the history of American legal thought. Known in the vernacular as the "Scopes Monkey Trial," the case took place in Dayton, Tennessee in the summer of 1925.1 It concerned a substitute high school biology teacher who was arrested and convicted for teaching evolutionary theory in violation of a Tennessee anti- evolution act.2 At the time, the trial was the most public confrontation between religious fundamentalism and modem science. -
“Scopes Wasn't the First”: Nebraska's 1924 Anti-Evolution Trial
“Scopes Wasn’t the First”: Nebraska’s 1924 Anti-Evolution Trial (Article begins on page 2 below.) This article is copyrighted by History Nebraska (formerly the Nebraska State Historical Society). You may download it for your personal use. For permission to re-use materials, or for photo ordering information, see: https://history.nebraska.gov/publications/re-use-nshs-materials Learn more about Nebraska History (and search articles) here: https://history.nebraska.gov/publications/nebraska-history-magazine History Nebraska members receive four issues of Nebraska History annually: https://history.nebraska.gov/get-involved/membership Full Citation: Adam Shapiro, “‘Scopes Wasn’t the First’: Nebraska’s 1924 Anti-Evolution Trial,” Nebraska History 94 (2013): 110-119 Article Summary: “Darwin and Genesis fought out a battle in District Judge Broady’s court in Lincoln,” reported the Fremont Tribune on October 22, 1924, “and . Genesis lost and Darwin won.” Nebraska had its own anti- evolution trial nearly seven months before the famous Scopes trial opened in Tennessee. But how did the Nebraska case remain obscure while the Tennessee case became a national sensation? Cataloging Information: Names: John Scopes, Charles Darwin, William Jennings Bryan, Charles W. Bryan, David S Domer, William A Klink, Charles William Taylor, Frank R Beers, Herbert Spencer, Charles Hodge Place Names: Dayton, Tennessee; Rising City, Butler County, Nebraska Keywords: evolution, Midland College, slander, Genesis, eugenics, (physical) disability, Four Minute Men, Siman Act, -
Clarence Darrow on Religion, Law, and Society
Introduction Clarence Darrow (1857–1938), whose decades-long championing of the despised and powerless earned him the sobriquet of “The Great Defender,” was born four years before the beginning of the Civil War and died a year before the beginning of World War II. These eighty years could well be considered the most transformative in United States his- tory—years that saw America expand from a fledgling and sparsely populated nation of farmers and small businessmen to an emerging super- power. Darrow witnessed and, in no insignificant way, participated in the multifaceted growing pains incident to this transformation: on such issues as the relations between capital and labor, the role of women in society, the place of religion in a diverse population, and, particularly, the theoretical and practical status of crime and punishment, Darrow made signal contributions that endured far beyond the span of his own life. A lawyer first and a writer second, he nonetheless left behind a succession of treatises whose provocative content still challenges us. Darrow, a self-proclaimed rebel who sided, both intellectually and emo- tionally, with the minority, remains a figure to contend with. Throughout his writings, whether they be on crime, religion, or morals, Darrow expressed the conviction that our views of life are fun- damentally and unalterably shaped by childhood experience. In this as- sertion he may well have been considering his own upbringing, for the kernels of many facets of his thought can be found in the events of his youth and adolescence. He was born on April 18, 1857, in the village of vii Kinsman, in northeast Ohio, the fifth of eight children born to Amirus and Emily (Eddy) Darrow. -
A Civic Biology
A CIVIC BIOLOGY Presented In Problems BY GEORGE WILLIAM HUNTER, A.M. HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF' BIOLOGY, DE WITT CLINTON mGH SCHOOL, CITY OF NEW YORK. AUTHOR OF "ELEMENTS OF BIOLOGY," "ESSENTIALS OF BIOLOGY," ETC. AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO COI'YHIGIIT, tVl..j., BY GEOIWg WI LLIAM liLJN'l'ER COPYIUWI'r, 1U14, IN GREAT BRiTAIN. lJUNTI.;){, OIVlC BIOLOGY. W. P. 4 192 EVOLUTION EVOLUTION 193 Adaptations in Mammalia. - Of the thirty-five hundred species, Increasing Complexity of Structure and of Habits in Plants and most inhabit continents; a few species are found on different islands Animals. - In our study of biology so far we have attempted to and some, as the whale, inhabit the ocean. They vary in size fro~ get some notion of the various factors which act upon living things. the whale and the elephant to tiny shrew mice and moles. Adapta We have seen how plants and animals interact upon each other. tions to different habitat We have learned something about the various physiological pro andmethods of life abound; cesses of plants and animals, and have found them to be in many the seal and whale have respects identical. We have found grades of complexity in plants the limbs modified into from the one-celled plant, bacterium or pleurococcus, to the com flippers, the sloth and plicated flowering plants of considerable size and with many squirrel have limbs pecul Periods liJrOlatiOlls inlIl'stem United Slates andClwaderiSlic 1ifpecflforwmeoch Fare Foot iarly adapted to climbing, Recent ,~,_ while the bats have the OneToe fore limbs modeled for Splints of flight. -
The Scopes Trial: Who Decides What Gets Taught in the Classroom?
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS FOUNDATION SPRING 2006B I L L O F R I G H T S I N A C VOLUTME 2I2 O NUMBN ER 2 The Scopes Trial: Who Decides What Gets Taught in the Classroom? One of the most famous trials in American history took place in a small town in Tennessee in 1925. On trial was a high-school teacher, John Scopes. The charge against him: teaching evolution. n July 10, 1925, hundreds of reporters gathered in Dayton, Tennessee. They were covering the trial of JOohn Scopes, a 24-year-old science teacher and part-time football coach. Scopes had been arrested for violating a Tennessee law that made it unlawful “to teach any theory that denies the Story of Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animal.” The Scopes trial riveted Attorney Clarence Darrow (standing on the right) questions the witness William national attention and is one of the most famous trials of Jennings Bryan in the Scopes trial. The judge had moved the trial outdoors the century. because he was afraid the floor might collapse. (Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7091, image #2005-26202) Evolution Versus Religion In 1859 in Great Britain, Charles Darwin published On the War I. The outcome of the war caused widespread disillusion - Origin of the Species . In his book, Darwin laid out evidence ment, and many were concerned about a perceived collapse in that living things had evolved from common ances - public morals. Fundamentalists shared a belief in biblical lit - W tors through a mechanism he called “natural selec - eralism. -
Notable Trade Book Lesson Plan: Monkey Town: the Summer of the Scopes Trial
Social Studies Research and Practice http://www.socstrp.org Notable Trade Books Judy D. Butler Contributing Editor Notable Trade Book Lesson Plan Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial by Ronald Kidd Michael G. Lovorn The University of Alabama State of Tennessee v. John T. Scopes tested the legality of the Butler Act which made it unlawful for public school teachers “to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible.” The media event became known as the “Monkey Trial” and brought a flood of publicity to rural Dayton, Tennessee, turning the creation vs. evolution debate into a national conversation. This dialog and debate caused Americans to consider the powerful influence of traditional religious beliefs and to examine how ideology fares when challenged by modernism and the advancement of scientific theory. Accordingly, the Scopes Trail is included in national curriculum standards for middle grades to foster historical inquiry and encourage students’ contemplation of concepts and factors associated with human thinking, feeling, and behavior. The historical fiction in Monkey Town presents the trial and related hysteria through the observations of a 15-year-old local girl trying to discover what she believes. This lesson encourages learners to critically analyze the relationships between ideas and practices. It enables students’ cursory exploration into issues and conflicts, allowing them to develop discussion and critical thinking skills by considering different perspectives in a historical setting. Book Title Kidd, R. (2006). Monkey Town: The summer of the Scopes Trial. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN: 978-1416905721 Suggested age level: 10 - 15 Volume 4 Number 2 99 July 2009 Social Studies Research and Practice http://www.socstrp.org Book Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial by Ronald Kidd is a work of Summary historical fiction centered on the original “Trial of the Century” which took place in July 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee.