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Table of Contents

See Also

Bryan, William Jennings

Censorship

Darrow, Clarence

Education

Gitlow v. New York

Mencken, H. L.

Religion in the United States

The 1920s in America

Scopes trial

by Thomas Tandy Lewis

The Event: The prosecution of a teacher from a Tennessee public school for teaching the biological theory of evolution

Date: July 10–21, 1925

Place: Dayton, Tennessee

Schoolteacher John T. Scopes was found guilty of violating Tennessee’s anti-evolution law, but his fine was overturned by the state’s supreme court, making it impossible for defense lawyers to appeal the ruling to the federal courts in hopes of getting the law itself overturned. Although the anti-evolution law remained on the books, the widespread ridicule of prosecutors in the trial tended to discourage enforcement of the law.

By the 1920s, a majority of biologists accepted the scientific validity of Charles Darwin’s theory that all animal species had evolved gradually, primarily through the process of natural selection. Opponents of the theory were distressed that it was favorably discussed in most public school textbooks. The most significant opposition to Darwinism came from Christian Fundamentalists, religious conservatives who espoused a literal reading of the Bible, including its Creation narrative. Fundamentalist preachers and their allies insisted that departure from the biblical account would promote atheism and immorality, and they further argued that citizens in a democracy had the right to ban such teachings from schools financed by their taxes.

In February 1925 Tennessee legislators passed a bill sponsored by state representative John W. Butler, making it a misdemeanor to teach any theory that denied the biblical account of Creation. The punishment for violating the law was a minimum fine of one hundred dollars and a maximum of five hundred dollars. Although the law was often ignored, it acted as a deterrent to biology teachers. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced that it would pay the legal expenses for any teacher prosecuted under the Butler Act.

Preparations for the Trial

When civic leaders in the small town of Dayton read about the ACLU’s offer, they recognized that a trial to test the law’s constitutionality would raise Dayton’s profile and positively affect its economy. On May 4, they contacted John T. Scopes, a twenty-four-year-old educator who taught math, physics, and chemistry, occasionally substituting for the biology teacher. When asked if he had ever violated the Butler Act, he replied he had perhaps summarized the theory while standing in for a biology class in April. He pointed out that the state’s approved text, George Hunter’s A Civic Biology: Presented in Problems, had a section describing evolution. A religious skeptic, Scopes strongly opposed the law, and he agreed to stand trial for a test case. The next day the chairman of the school board obtained the ACLU’s promise of support and announced the arrest of Scopes to the press.

The story of the impending trial quickly captured national headlines, especially after famed journalist and social critic H. L. Mencken labeled it the “monkey trial”—a reference to the notion that humans evolved from apes—in his coverage for the Baltimore Sun. On May 13, William Jennings Bryan, a former secretary of state and presidential candidate, agreed to represent the World Christian Fundamentals Association—an interdenominational group that supported the Butler Act—at the trial, and the state accepted him as a special prosecutor. This prompted Clarence Darrow and Dudley Field Malone, two of the most prominent libertarian lawyers in the country, to offer their services for the defense without fees. In June, Scopes traveled to New York to formulate a legal strategy with ACLU lawyers. Although the ACLU preferred another attorney, they agreed to honor Scopes’s preference for Darrow as the lead lawyer, with the assistance of Arthur Garfield Hays and John R. Neal, among others.

John Scopes (right) with his father, Thomas.

227_Scopes_trial.jpg

(Getty Images)

The Trial

Both the proponents and opponents of evolutionary theory saw the trial as a showdown between two incompatible worldviews. Bryan and other Fundamentalists viewed the trial as a battle to save the country from atheism and immorality. Secular intellectuals and liberal scientists were shocked at the prospect of the government restricting scientific knowledge from classrooms. Responding to public interest, newspapers sent more than 120 journalists to report on the proceedings. Chicago radio station WGN dispatched announcer Quin Ryan to Dayton, and the case became the first U.S. trial to be broadcast live over national radio.

As its leaders had hoped, Dayton’s economy improved with the trial. Merchants sold monkey dolls and featured monkey motifs in their advertisements. Hotel Aqua, the only true hotel in town, was fully occupied, and many visitors had to find housing in neighboring communities.

On July 10, presiding judge John Raulston opened the trial in the presence of nine hundred spectators. After the jury was impaneled, the defense tried unsuccessfully to quash the indictment on the grounds that the Butler Act violated the freedoms guaranteed in both the state and federal constitutions. Tennessee attorney general A. T. Stewart then presented an opening statement, alleging that Scopes was guilty of committing a misdemeanor. Defense attorney Malone responded that there was no evidence that Scopes had actually denied the biblical account of Creation, arguing that some Christian theologians interpreted the Bible as being consistent with evolutionary theory. Raulston, however, accepted the prosecution’s evidence that Scopes had admitted to teaching evolution, thereby disobeying the literal words and intent of the statute.

Three students testified that Scopes had said in the classroom that humans had gradually evolved from single-celled organisms. When Scopes’s lawyers attempted to call competent zoologists to testify in support of evolutionary theory, Raulston disallowed their testimony, explaining that scientific knowledge was irrelevant to whether or not Scopes had broken the law. Bryan gave a long speech defending the Bible and alleging that Darwin’s ideas had inspired German militarism and motivated two murderers recently defended by Darrow. Malone countered that truth is always victorious and therefore needs no laws respecting free speech.

On the seventh day, the defense unexpectedly called Bryan to the stand as an expert witness. The ensuing confrontation between Darrow and Bryan was the highlight of the trial. Darrow forced Bryan to defend literal interpretations of biblical stories. Bryan admitted that the word “day” in the Genesis Creation story might denote a period of more than twenty-four hours. Darrow’s supporters felt Bryan was made to look foolish, whereas Bryan’s supporters were disappointed with his inability to give more persuasive answers.

Closing for the defense on July 21, Darrow asked for a verdict of guilty in order to allow the case to be appealed. The jury found accordingly, and Raulston fined Scopes one hundred dollars. Scopes appealed, maintaining that the Butler Act was a violation of his constitutional freedoms. Two years later, the Tennessee Supreme Court held in Scopes v. State (1927) that the Butler Act was consistent with the state’s constitution, but it overturned Scopes’s punishment on a technicality, because the law specified that the fine should have been decided by the jury rather than the judge. This decision prevented an appeal to the federal courts. The state’s attorney general could have prosecuted Scopes in a second trial, but he declined to do so.

Impact

The Scopes trial demonstrated the great gulf that existed between Americans with secular views and those committed to traditional religious beliefs. Following the trial, partisans of both sides claimed victory. Although some historians have asserted that the trial marked the displacement of religious faith and rural values by secularism and scientific skepticism, the number of committed Fundamentalists continued to grow. During the next five years, twelve state legislatures debated bills with wording similar to the Butler Act, and efforts in Mississippi and Arkansas were successful. Although the laws were rarely enforced, they nevertheless encouraged teachers to avoid mentioning evolution in the classroom.

The Scopes trial failed to settle the most important legal issue of the case: whether the Butler Act violated the U.S. Constitution. A month before the trial began, the U.S. Supreme Court had declared in Gitlow v. New York (1925) that the First Amendment’s upholding of religious exercise and freedom of speech was binding and further protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Tennessee legislature repealed the Butler Act in 1967. The next year, in Epperson v. Arkansas, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that it was unconstitutional to prohibit the teaching of a scientific theory on religious grounds.

Further Reading

1 

Johnson, Anne Janette. The Scopes Monkey Trial. Detroit: Omnigraphics, 2007. A readable account of the trial, including biographies of key participants and a selection of primary-source materials.

2 

Larson, Edward. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Analyzes the trial as part of the continuing controversy between scientists and Fundamentalists.

3 

Lienesch, Michael. In the Beginning: Fundamentalism, the Scopes Trial, and the Making of the Antievolution Movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Discusses the trial as a significant event in the history of two antagonistic social movements.

4 

Scopes, John T., et al. The World’s Most Famous Trial, State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes: Complete Stenographic Report of the Court Test of the Tennessee Anti-Evolution Act at Dayton, July 10 to 21, 1925. New York: Da Capo Press, 1971. A primary source for researchers interested in the exact words used in the trial.

5 

Scopes, John T., and James Presley. Center of the Storm: Memoirs of John T. Scopes. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967. Corrects mistakes found in many secondary accounts of the trial.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Lewis, Thomas Tandy. "Scopes Trial." The 1920s in America, edited by Carl Rollyson, Salem Press, 2012. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=1920_0559.
APA 7th
Lewis, T. T. (2012). Scopes trial. In C. Rollyson (Ed.), The 1920s in America. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Lewis, Thomas Tandy. "Scopes Trial." Edited by Carl Rollyson. The 1920s in America. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2012. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.