Scopes Monkey Trial

Dayton, TN, 1925

In 1925, the Butler Act was passed in TN that forbade the teaching of evolution in schools. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) thus financed a test case in response to the act-->A coal miner owner in Dayton who believed this kind of trial would give Dayton the kind of publicity it needed, called in his friend John Scopes, who intentionally violated the act and was tried in court. The trial featured William Jennings Byran who argued for the traditionalists and Clarence Darrow who argued in favor of the teaching and belief of evolution. In the end, Scopes is found guilty and has to pay a fine.

-Comes down to public opinion that Darrow destroys Bryan and is a call to Protestant Fundamentalists to retreat-->goes underground until Reagan era.
-The trial is really a cultural war over respectability (modernists vs. traditionalists)