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Scopes Trial

The Scopes trial, also referred to as the “Monkey” trial, pitted traditionalists against the emerging modernists during the summer of 1925. The 1920’s proved to be a time of advancement in the United States, not only in technology but in thought. Who would dominate American culture? The guilt or innocence of John Scopes, and even the constitutionality of Tennessee’s anti-evolution statute, mattered little. The meaning of the trial emerged through its interpretation as a conflict of social and intellectual values (Linder, 1).
The Butler Act, Tennessee anti-evolution law, stated “…that it shall be unlawful for any teacher…to teach any theory that denies the story of Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man descended from a lower order of animals” (Butler). When the American Civil Liberties Union discovered the law, they sent out a press release requesting the cooperation of a Tennessee teacher in a “friendly test case” of the law (DeCamp 8). John T. Scopes, a local track coach and substitute biology teacher, was persuaded to challenge the law. Town leaders in Dayton agreed that this trial was a way to put Dayton on the map. From the beginning of the trial, the media was involved. The “monkey” trial created headlines in newspapers everywhere. It was from this moment that “it was evident that the verdict was clearly not the main focus of the people’s attention” (Scopes 23).
William Jennings Bryan, three-time Presidential candidate and fundamentalist, served as the prosecutor. Clarence Darrow, one of the most famous defense attorneys of his time, represented Scopes. With these high-profilers leading the courtroom, the American public was sure to pay attention. On the first day of the trial, it was the defense’s strategy/goal “not to win acquittal for John Scopes, but rather to obtain a declaration by a higher court – preferably the U.S. Supreme Court – that laws forbidding the teaching of evolution were...