What are facts about the Scopes Monkey Trial?
Jan 05, 2011 · The chief prosecutor at the real life Scopes "Monkey" trial was in fact Thomas A. "Tom" Stewart, Attorney General for the 18th district …
What was the outcome of the Scopes Monkey Trial?
Nov 17, 2017 · Clarence Darrow – a famous attorney who had recently acted for the defense in the notorious Leopold and Loeb murder trial – found out about the Scopes trial through journalist H.L. Mencken ...
What is the effect of the Scopes Monkey Trial?
The prosecution included Bryan, Circuit Attorney General Arthur Thomas Stewart, and Bryan’s son, William Jennings Bryan, Jr., a Los Angeles lawyer. For the defense were Darrow, New York lawyer and co-counsel Dudley Field Malone, ACLU attorney Arthur Garfield Hays, and Scopes’ local lawyer, John Randolph Neal.
What happened after the Scopes Monkey Trial?
The Scopes “monkey trial” was the moniker journalist H. L. Mencken applied to the 1925 prosecution of a criminal action brought by the state of Tennessee against high school teacher John T. Scopes for violating the state’s Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools. In the case Scopes v.
What was the purpose of the Scopes trial?
The trial was viewed as an opportunity to challenge the constitutionality of the bill, to publicly advocate for the legitimacy of Darwin’s theory of evolution, and to enhance the profile of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
How did the trial day start?
The trial day started with crowds pouring into the courthouse two hours before it was scheduled to begin , filling up the room and causing onlookers to spill into the hallways. There was applause when Bryan entered the court and further when he and Darrow shook hands.
When did the grand jury meet?
The grand jury met on May 9, 1925. In preparation, Scopes recruited and coached students to testify against him. Three of the seven students attending were called to testify, each showing a sketchy understanding of evolution. The case was pushed forward and a trial set for July 10.
Who proposed the theory of evolution?
The theory of evolution, as presented by Charles Darwin and others, was a controversial concept in many quarters, even into the 20th century. Concerted anti-evolutionist efforts in Tennessee succeeded when in 1925, the Tennessee House of Representatives was offered a bill by John W. Butler making teaching evolution a misdemeanor.
What was the Scopes trial?
John Scopes. What became known as the Scopes Monkey Trial began as a publicity stunt for the town of Dayton, Tennessee. A local businessman met with the school superintendent and a lawyer to discuss using the ACLU offer to get newspapers to write about the town.
Who was Clarence Darrow?
Clarence Darrow – a famous attorney who had recently acted for the defense in the notorious Leopold and Loeb murder trial – found out about the Scopes trial through journalist H.L. Mencken, who suggested Darrow should defend Scopes.
What was the Butler Act?
It was to a packed courthouse on Monday that arguments began by the defense working to establish the scientific validity of evolution, while the prosecution focused on the Butler Act as an education standard for Tennessee citizens, citing precedents.
Why was Scopes arrested?
On May 7, Scopes was officially arrested for violating Tennessee’s anti-evolution statute.
How old is John Scopes?
John Scopes wasn’t the obvious candidate. A gawky, 24-year-old Illinois native, he was still new to his job as a general science teacher and football coach at Rhea County Central High School. Yet his views on evolution were unequivocal.
Who was the Scopes trial?
The defendant, John Thomas Scopes, was a high school coach and substitute teacher who had been charged with violating the Butler Act by teaching the theory of evolution in his classes.
Did Scopes teach evolution?
In reality, Scopes was unsure of whether he had ever technically taught the theory of evolution, but he had reviewed the chapter in the evolution chapter in the textbook with students, and he agreed to incriminate himself so that the Butler Act could be challenged by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union).
What was the scopes monkey trial?
The Scopes Monkey Trial started as an effort by the ACLU to challenge the constitutionality of a Tennessee law that forbade teaching the theory of evolution in public schools. The Tennessee Supreme Court found the law forbidding the teaching of evolution to be constitutional. In 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court found a similar law in Arkansas to be a violation of the First Amendment. In this photo, evangelist T.T. Martin's books against the theory of evolution are sold in Dayton, Tennessee, at the Scopes trial. (AP Photo, used with permission from the Associated Press)
Where were T.T. Martin's books sold?
In this photo, evangelist T.T. Martin's books against the theory of evolution are sold in Dayton, Tennessee, at the Scopes trial. (AP Photo, used with permission from the Associated Press)
Who was John Scopes?
High school biology teacher John T. Scopes, shown here in 1925, was recruited to teach the theory of evolution as a way to challenge a Tennessee law that forbade it in public schools. (AP Photo, file, used with permission from the Associated Press)
What did the ACLU do in the Butler Act?
The case arose when, seeking to test the constitutional validity of the Butler Act, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) placed advertisements in Tennessee newspapers offering to pay the expenses of any teacher willing to challenge the law.
Who was John Thomas Scopes?
Defending substitute high school teacher John Thomas Scopes was Clarence Darrow, one of the celebrity lawyers of the day. William Jennings Bryan—the “Great Commoner,” three-time Democratic nominee for President, and Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. ruling elder—argued for the prosecution, the State of Tennessee, ...
Who was the secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson?
Charles Wishart, RG 414. (Image No. 4725) A convert to Presbyterianism, Bryan had served as Secretary of State under fellow Presbyterian Woodrow Wilson.
What was the battle between Fundamentalists and Modernists?
By the mid 1920s, the battle between Fundamentalists, who believed in the literal truth of the Bible, and Modernists, who believed religion should progress with modern society, embroiled most Protestant denominations. It was particularly divisive among Presbyterians, contributing to the formation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1936.
Who was the teacher who taught the theory of evolution?
Clarence Seward Darrow defended Tennessee teacher John Scopes who was charged for teaching the theory of evolution in 1925. "Scopes broke the Butler Act, a Tennessee law that forbade the teaching of evolution because it contradicted Biblical creation theory. The trial got worldwide publicity and was known as the "Monkey Trial." Darrow argued that evolution was scientifically valid and claimed that the Butler Act was unlawful, but did not deny that Scopes had broken the law. Scopes was fined $100, but the verdict was later reversed on technical grounds by the state supreme court. The Butler Act remained in force until 1967." US Library of Congress (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Who was John Scopes' attorney?
John T. Scopes (right) photographed with his attorney, John R. Neal, at the time of his trial for violating a Tennessee state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools, 1925.
Overview
The Scopes Trial, formally The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case from July 10 to July 21, 1925 in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolutionin any state-funded school. The trial was deliberately st…
Origins
State Representative John Washington Butler, a Tennessee farmer and head of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, lobbied state legislatures to pass anti-evolution laws. He succeeded when the Butler Act was passed in Tennessee, on March 25, 1925. Butler later stated, "I didn't know anything about evolution ... I'd read in the papers that boys and girls were coming home from school and telling their fathers and mothers that the Bible was all nonsense." Tennessee governor Austin …
Dayton, Tennessee
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) offered to defend anyone accused of teaching the theory of evolution in defiance of the Butler Act. On April 5, 1925, George Rappleyea, local manager for the Cumberland Coal and Iron Company, arranged a meeting with county superintendent of schools Walter White and local attorney Sue K. Hicksat Robinson's Drug Store, convincing them that the c…
Proceedings
The ACLU had originally intended to oppose the Butler Act on the grounds that it violated the teacher's individual rights and academic freedom, and was therefore unconstitutional. Principally because of Clarence Darrow, this strategy changed as the trial progressed. The earliest argument proposed by the defense once the trial had begun was that there was actually no conflict between evolution and t…
Appeal to the Supreme Court of Tennessee
Scopes' lawyers appealed, challenging the conviction on several grounds. First, they argued that the statute was overly vague because it prohibited the teaching of "evolution", a very broad term. The court rejected that argument, holding:
Evolution, like prohibition, is a broad term. In recent bickering, however, evolution has been understood to mean the theory which holds that man has developed from some pre-existing low…
Aftermath
The trial revealed a growing chasm in American Christianity and two ways of finding truth, one "biblical" and one "evolutionist". Author David Goetz writes that the majority of Christians denounced evolution at the time.
Author Mark Edwards contests the conventional view that in the wake of the Scopes trial, a humiliated fundamentalism retreated into the political and cultural background, a viewpoint whic…
Publicity
Edward J. Larson, a historian who won the Pulitzer Prize for History for his book Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion (2004), notes: "Like so many archetypal American events, the trial itself began as a publicity stunt." The press coverage of the "Monkey Trial" was overwhelming. The front pages of newspapers like The New York Timeswere dominated by the case for days. More than 200 newspaper reporters from all p…
Courthouse
In a $1 million restoration of the Rhea County Courthousein Dayton, completed in 1979, the second-floor courtroom was restored to its appearance during the Scopes trial. A museum of trial events in its basement contains such memorabilia as the microphone used to broadcast the trial, trial records, photographs, and an audiovisual history. Every July, local people re-enact key …
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