Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Today we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about the Scopes Trial also known
Speaker 1: as the Monkey Trial, so known as the Scopes Monkey Trial,
Speaker 1: which played out in Dayton, Tennessee, in the summer of
Speaker 1: I learned last night from a dear friend of mine
Speaker 1: who grew up in Tennessee that they cover this in
Speaker 1: Tennessee History class. Cool. So if you grew up in Tennessee,
Speaker 1: or maybe if you've studied law, you might already know
Speaker 1: a lot of these details. But a lot of what
Speaker 1: most folks know in quotation marks about this trial really
Speaker 1: comes from Inherit the Wind, which started as a play
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty five and was adapted into a film
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty. And even if you have never personally
Speaker 1: seen Inherit the Wind, which was conceived more as an
Speaker 1: allegory for McCarthy ism than an actual portrayal of the
Speaker 1: Scopes Trial, it does not even use the same names
Speaker 1: or location. A lot of conventional wisdom about the trial
Speaker 1: and its personalities and how it played out really have
Speaker 1: much deeper roots in inherent the wind than in actual history.
Speaker 1: I won't out them by name, but I have a
Speaker 1: friend who I mentioned yesterday that we were doing this,
Speaker 1: and their reaction was, wait, is that one about slavery?
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, no, not, so there's no shame in
Speaker 1: having you know, blind spots in your historical knowledge tickled me.
Speaker 1: And it's a very smart person, but we all have them,
Speaker 1: those weird blind spots. Uh, and Tracey will now clear
Speaker 1: it up, and that person will know all the things
Speaker 1: about anything about slavery at all. No. So The State
Speaker 1: of Tennessee versus John Thomas Scopes was the United States
Speaker 1: first major legal battle over the teaching of evolution. Charles
Speaker 1: Darwin had published On the Origin of Species by Means
Speaker 1: of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in
Speaker 1: the Struggle for Life back in eighteen fifty nine, and
Speaker 1: Darwin did not invent the idea of evolution. The basic
Speaker 1: idea that species change and shift over time goes back
Speaker 1: millennia in multiple cultures, but the book itself was hugely
Speaker 1: influential and very controversial by the nineteen teens and twenties.
Speaker 1: Though Darwin's writings were well established, they were generally accepted
Speaker 1: in the field of biology, and as part of a
Speaker 1: general trend of progressive educational reform, they also started to
Speaker 1: be incorporated into school curricula. In the United States, teachers
Speaker 1: were beginning to unionize and the National Education Association had
Speaker 1: recommended that states try to align their standards for education nationally.
Speaker 1: And with this overall trend in standardization, more and more
Speaker 1: states were making science a mandatory school requirement, and more
Speaker 1: and more science textbook were addressing evolution. For example, William
Speaker 1: Hunter's A Civic Biology Presented in Problems, which was published
Speaker 1: in nineteen fourteen, was the approved biology textbook in the
Speaker 1: state of Tennessee in nineteen Like other civic biology texts
Speaker 1: of the time, it framed biology in terms of its
Speaker 1: practical applicability to other parts of life, like hygiene and
Speaker 1: wellness and food safety. Hunter's book included evolution in chapter fourteen,
Speaker 1: quote Division of labor, the various forms of Plants and animals,
Speaker 1: and part of that chapter reads the great English scientists
Speaker 1: Charles Darwin, from this and other evidence, explained the theory
Speaker 1: of evolution. This is the belief that simple forms of
Speaker 1: life on Earth slowly and gradually gave rise to those
Speaker 1: more complex, and that thus ultimately the most complex forms
Speaker 1: came into existence. Running parallel to this progressive shift and
Speaker 1: educational standards and the inclusion of evolution in science textbook
Speaker 1: was a rise in religious fundamentalism, particularly Christian fundamentalism. The
Speaker 1: term fundamentalism itself was coined in the nineteen twenties, signifying
Speaker 1: a strict adherence to certain fundamental concepts of Christian faith
Speaker 1: and in some cases interpreting the Bible literally rather than figuratively.
Speaker 1: And when it came to evolutionary theory, some Christians, particularly
Speaker 1: fundamentalist Christians, objected to the idea that humans came from
Speaker 1: monkeys and to the idea that something other than a
Speaker 1: divine hand could be credited for life on earth. And
Speaker 1: if the Bible was the literal word of God, then
Speaker 1: the writings of Charles Darwin and other evolutionary biologists were
Speaker 1: directly contradictory to the creation story in the Book of Genesis. Obviously,
Speaker 1: other religions and other nations had their own views on
Speaker 1: evolution and whether it should be taught, but Christianity in
Speaker 1: the United States is what is relevant to the Scopes trial.
Speaker 1: Also for the sake of clarity. This whole human came
Speaker 1: from monkey's idea. It's one that a lot of people
Speaker 1: took away from the Origin of species and from all
Speaker 1: the conversations that followed its publication. But the Origin of
Speaker 1: Species only very briefly and vaguely alludes to the origins
Speaker 1: of humankind. There is nothing in its saying humans came
Speaker 1: from monkeys. Darwin's second book, The Descent of Man, came
Speaker 1: out in eighteen seventy one, and it is about theories
Speaker 1: of human origins, and it's basic conclusion is that quote
Speaker 1: man is descended from some less highly organized form. Darwin
Speaker 1: describes the less organized form as some ancient, unknown ancestor
Speaker 1: that does have some monkey like traits, but it is
Speaker 1: not a modern monkey. Today, the scientific consensus is that
Speaker 1: both humans and monkeys descended from an ancestor that lived
Speaker 1: millions of years ago, not that one came from another.
Speaker 1: Essentially two branches of a tree, yes, a very large
Speaker 1: and very complex tree. Yes, yes, yes, it's not like
Speaker 1: they each branch off from one spot. It's there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We talked about this in our Pilled Down Man episode.
Speaker 1: If you are looking for a little more of that
Speaker 1: piece of history. So in the face of this ongoing
Speaker 1: conflict between scientific acceptance of evolution and religious rejection of it,
Speaker 1: multiple states began considering laws to ban its teaching. On
Speaker 1: its face, this was a religious issue. The idea that
Speaker 1: children might go to school and come home questioning their
Speaker 1: faith was frightening and infuriating too many parents, especially given
Speaker 1: that public schools were funded through taxes they were paying.
Speaker 1: People were basically like, I want my kid to go
Speaker 1: to the school I'm paying for and then come home
Speaker 1: and say they don't believe in God anymore. But it
Speaker 1: was also a general resistance to the overall trend of
Speaker 1: establishing state and national education standards. Many parents in rural
Speaker 1: counties didn't like the idea of far away legislatures in
Speaker 1: their state capitals or Washington, d c. Setting rules about
Speaker 1: what they're children would learn while having no idea what
Speaker 1: their wishes or needs were. Passing laws against the teaching
Speaker 1: of evolution was a way to gain a sense of
Speaker 1: control over what children were being taught in the face
Speaker 1: of all these changes to the educational system. Although Florida
Speaker 1: and Oklahoma passed laws that were connected to this basic
Speaker 1: issue in nineteen twenty three, it was Tennessee that became
Speaker 1: the first state who explicitly forbid the teaching of evolution
Speaker 1: in nineteen Representative John W. Butler introduced what became known
Speaker 1: as the Butler Act on January twenty one of that year.
Speaker 1: He had been interested in introducing similar legislation as far
Speaker 1: back as nineteen twenty one, after hearing a sermon about
Speaker 1: a young woman who had gone to college and come
Speaker 1: home believing in evolution but not in God. Once Butler
Speaker 1: had introduced the Act, there was some legislative back and forth,
Speaker 1: but ultimately it passed both the Tennessee House and Senate
Speaker 1: with overwhelming support. Tennessee's got owner, Austin p signed it
Speaker 1: into law on March twenty one, after putting it off
Speaker 1: until the last possible day and at one point telling
Speaker 1: a senator that he thought the bill was absurd. P,
Speaker 1: who was in his second term as governor, had already
Speaker 1: instituted a number of progressive reforms within the state. He
Speaker 1: was at that point trying to pass a massive school
Speaker 1: reform bill that would do things like build high schools
Speaker 1: in rural counties that didn't have them, length in the
Speaker 1: school year, and make education compulsory. It's possible that P.
Speaker 1: Finally signed the Butler Act in exchange for Congressional support
Speaker 1: for his massive school reform bill, or that he recognized
Speaker 1: that this bill and the reforms that it was instituting
Speaker 1: would face some resistance in rural parts of Tennessee, so
Speaker 1: he felt like the Butler Act would assuage some people's
Speaker 1: fears over what he was wanting to do. Even when
Speaker 1: he signed it, though he said it was mostly symbolic
Speaker 1: and that he did not expect anyone to be charged
Speaker 1: with violating it. The Butler Act made it illegal for
Speaker 1: any teacher in Tennessee funded schools and universities to quote
Speaker 1: teach any theory that denies the story of the divine
Speaker 1: creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to
Speaker 1: teach instead that man has descended from a lower order
Speaker 1: of animals. It also established a fine of one hundred
Speaker 1: to five hundred dollars, and the Act didn't really offer
Speaker 1: insight on what to do about the fact that the
Speaker 1: state approved biology textbook laid out the basic concepts of
Speaker 1: evolution in chapter fourteen. This all brings us to the
Speaker 1: Scopes trial, in which Tennessee teacher John Thomas Scopes was
Speaker 1: charged with teaching evolution in defiance of the Butler Act.
Speaker 1: He was convicted in a highly publicized trial that played
Speaker 1: out in a pretty circus like atmosphere, and it had
Speaker 1: a lot of famous names in the legal teams on
Speaker 1: both sides. But the whole thing came about in a
Speaker 1: way that's significantly different from what people might imagine. We
Speaker 1: will have some details after the break. Although local attorneys
Speaker 1: were also part of it, the Scopes trial involved a
Speaker 1: hugely high profile cast of characters from out of town.
Speaker 1: There was defense attorney Clarence Darrow, originally from Ohio, who
Speaker 1: was one of America's most famous attorneys. He had represented
Speaker 1: Eugene V. Debs after the massive Pullman strike of eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety four. He had also defended Leopold and Loebe and
Speaker 1: they're highly publicized murder trial. He's usually credited with getting
Speaker 1: them a life murder sentence instead of being executed. And
Speaker 1: the team on for the defense also included Arthur Garfield
Speaker 1: Haze of New York, who was the a c l
Speaker 1: Used General Council. The man arguing for the prosecution, William
Speaker 1: Jennings Bryan the Great Commoner was originally from Illinois. He
Speaker 1: had run for president three Times and served as Secretary
Speaker 1: of State under Woodrow Wilson. In the years leading up
Speaker 1: to the trial, he had also become one of the
Speaker 1: most prominent anti evolution figures in the nation, giving speeches
Speaker 1: with names like the Bible and its Enemies and the
Speaker 1: Menace of Darwinism. H. L. Mankin, who wrote some of
Speaker 1: the most famous and most memorable coverage of the trial,
Speaker 1: was from Baltimore, Maryland, and his coverage ran in the
Speaker 1: Baltimore Sun. Meanwhile, Dayton, Tennessee, originally founded as Smith's Crossroads,
Speaker 1: was a town of less than eighteen hundred people situated
Speaker 1: roughly between Chattanooga and Knoxville and the Tennessee River Valley.
Speaker 1: In the late nineteenth century, it had become home to
Speaker 1: the Dayton Iron and Coal Company, which, along with the railroad,
Speaker 1: had become the town's major employer. But by the nineteen
Speaker 1: teams the blast furnace had shut down, leaving farming as
Speaker 1: the now struggling town's major industry. So between all the
Speaker 1: big names and the struggling small town, it's easy to
Speaker 1: imagine that this was a case of a bunch of
Speaker 1: high falutant city folk blustering in uninvited to run rough
Speaker 1: shot over everybody and basically have a giant, public unwanted fight.
Speaker 1: But this was not the case at all, as still
Speaker 1: happens today when a newly passed law seems to run
Speaker 1: contrary to the Constitution or civil liberties. The butler immediately
Speaker 1: caught the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union. The
Speaker 1: a c l U publicly offered to defend any teacher
Speaker 1: charged with its violation. An advertisement announcing that the a
Speaker 1: c l U was seeking a test case ran in
Speaker 1: a Chattanooga newspaper on May four. This advertisement came to
Speaker 1: the attention of a group of Dayton's community and civic leaders.
Speaker 1: Fred E. Robinson's drug store had become site of regular
Speaker 1: meetings that included school superintendent Walter White, attorneys Herbert and
Speaker 1: Sue Hicks, Cumberland Cole and Iron Company manager George Washington Rapilier,
Speaker 1: and Robinson himself, who was also the school board president.
Speaker 1: Some of them did care about the teaching of evolution
Speaker 1: as a matter of principle, but they were far more
Speaker 1: interested in the community of Dayton. They thought a great,
Speaker 1: big trial would bring a lot of much needed attention
Speaker 1: and tourism dollars to the town. Rapilier, which may also
Speaker 1: have been Rapilier. Documents spell his name too different ways.
Speaker 1: Is usually the person who's credited with convincing them all
Speaker 1: to go along with this plan. To get the ball rolling,
Speaker 1: they just needed a teacher, and the teacher in question
Speaker 1: was John Thomas Scopes, who was then twenty four. Scopes
Speaker 1: had graduated from the University of Kentucky the year before,
Speaker 1: and he was working at the newly opened Ray County
Speaker 1: High School, teaching algebra and physics, coaching football, and sometimes
Speaker 1: substituting in biology. Dayton's civic leaders thought Scopes would be
Speaker 1: a good candidate for this scheme because he was well
Speaker 1: liked around town, he was not viewed as some kind
Speaker 1: of radical, and he didn't have a family whose livelihood
Speaker 1: would be threatened if he did lose his job. Although
Speaker 1: they hoped it wouldn't come to that, Scopes wasn't particularly
Speaker 1: eager to be arrested, but he agreed to go along
Speaker 1: with this. He did not agree with the Butler Act.
Speaker 1: He did not think it was possible to teach biology
Speaker 1: without also teaching evolution, and he didn't think that evolution
Speaker 1: was incompatible with religious faith. Scopes had even already at
Speaker 1: least supposedly done the necessary teaching of evolution. The prior April,
Speaker 1: he had done an exam review out of the state
Speaker 1: approved biology textbook. Although he couldn't remember specifically, he thought
Speaker 1: probably he'd gone over the chapter that included evolution. According
Speaker 1: to some accounts, he later said that he had not,
Speaker 1: but in any case, he was arrested for violating the
Speaker 1: Butler Act on May seven, and he was indicted on May.
Speaker 1: The town of Dayton then began to prepare for what
Speaker 1: it hoped would be an onslaught of visitors from late
Speaker 1: May until early July. The town built a tourist camp
Speaker 1: to provide additional housing. It also added a number of
Speaker 1: improvements to the court house, including an outdoor speakers platform
Speaker 1: with benches and loud speakers to handle an overflow crowd.
Speaker 1: To make the courtroom more hospitable to reporters and their work.
Speaker 1: It also added camera platforms, radio microphones, and telephone and
Speaker 1: telegraph lines. But it wasn't about accommodating lots of visitors.
Speaker 1: Are making the courthouse more accessible to the news media.
Speaker 1: Dayton also essentially turned part of its main road into
Speaker 1: a festival grounds, complete with vendors and stalls, a scopes
Speaker 1: trial Entertainment committee was formed. The Constable's motorcycle got a
Speaker 1: new label. Monkeyville. Police businesses hung pictures of apes and
Speaker 1: monkeys in their windows. A clothier who happened to be
Speaker 1: named j R. Darwin made the most of it with
Speaker 1: signs like Darwin is right inside and Darwin's Big Sale.
Speaker 1: A whole lot of store suddenly started stocking plush monkeys.
Speaker 1: Fred Robinson, whose uh drug store had been the site
Speaker 1: of the first conversation about hatching this plot, Fred Robinson
Speaker 1: started serving Semion sodas at the drug store. He strung
Speaker 1: a giant banner across the street reading Robinson's drug Store
Speaker 1: with where it started in smaller letters. Underneath. There were
Speaker 1: also photo ops at the table where that an show
Speaker 1: conversation had taken place. A chimpanzee named Joe Mendy, dressed
Speaker 1: in a plaid suit and bow tie, who was one
Speaker 1: of multiple chimpanzees brought into town for this was there
Speaker 1: to greet his customers when they came into the store.
Speaker 1: And in addition to all the business involvement in the
Speaker 1: overall carnival atmosphere, where a tinerant evangelists who came to
Speaker 1: town to preach about the evils of evolution and the
Speaker 1: rightness of banning it from school. Another banner was strung
Speaker 1: outside the courthouse that read, read your Bible, Bible in
Speaker 1: all caps. Of course in theory, all of this big
Speaker 1: monkey festival was going on because of a trial like
Speaker 1: in court, which we were going to talk about. After
Speaker 1: another quick sponsor break, jury's selection in the Scopes trial
Speaker 1: began on July. On that same day, the judge John T.
Speaker 1: Ralston took the precaution of impaneling a second r and
Speaker 1: jury to reindicte John Scopes. People had been so worried
Speaker 1: that some other town was going to have this same
Speaker 1: idea and hatch the same plan that the first indictment
Speaker 1: had been rushed through, and the judge was worried that
Speaker 1: it was invalid. Actual trial proceedings were put off until
Speaker 1: the following Monday to allow time for the radio hookups
Speaker 1: that had been installed in the courtroom to actually be
Speaker 1: connected for broadcasts. The Scopes trial would be the first
Speaker 1: trial to be publicly broadcast nationwide, and it was also
Speaker 1: filmed for newsreels that were distributed to movie theaters. The
Speaker 1: defense and the prosecution each had a completely different focus
Speaker 1: for this trial. From the prosecution's point of view, it
Speaker 1: was really simple. They would establish that John Thomas Scopes
Speaker 1: violated the Butler Act, which was state law, by teaching
Speaker 1: evolution in a public school, and they would establish that
Speaker 1: the state of Tennessee had the right to set its
Speaker 1: own standards for the public school curriculum. The defenses most
Speaker 1: practical folk us was whether the Act itself was enforceable,
Speaker 1: whether it's definition of evolution was precise enough, and whether
Speaker 1: a teacher had to both deny the story of divine
Speaker 1: creation and teach that man had descended from lower animals
Speaker 1: to be in violation of the law. But beyond that,
Speaker 1: it was looking at much broader issues than the defense
Speaker 1: was like establishing whether the Butler Act was religiously motivated
Speaker 1: and that evolution was scientifically sound. Let's focus on religion,
Speaker 1: and this angle of religion versus science was really coming
Speaker 1: from Clarence Darrow, who was a very vocal agnostic. The
Speaker 1: a c. L U, which was reluctant to have Darrow
Speaker 1: involved in this at all, viewed the Butler Act primarily
Speaker 1: as an act on the freedom of speech, not on
Speaker 1: the freedom of religion. This was in part because the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court had previously ruled that the free speech clauses
Speaker 1: of the First Amendment applied to state governments as well
Speaker 1: as to the federal government, it had not yet made
Speaker 1: such a ruling related to the freedom of religion, and
Speaker 1: that wouldn't happen for several more decades. So basically, the
Speaker 1: a c. L U was really looking at this as
Speaker 1: a speech issue, and Clarence Darrow was in his own
Speaker 1: little world focusing on the religious aspect. Once the trial began,
Speaker 1: about a thousand people tried to cram into the courtroom,
Speaker 1: which could hold about six hundred, and that happened every day.
Speaker 1: The rest listened from benches outside the courthouse. The courtroom
Speaker 1: was incredibly tight and incredibly hot, since the giant crush
Speaker 1: of people blocked the courtroom's windows, and at least at
Speaker 1: the start of the trial, it had no electric fans
Speaker 1: to circulate air. Apart from reporters representing more than one
Speaker 1: hundred newspapers, most of those trying to watch were locals
Speaker 1: and not visitors. So even though Dayton had turned the
Speaker 1: town into a sort of Scopes trial fair, it hadn't
Speaker 1: had the hoped for rush of tourists. The trial began
Speaker 1: with some fairly straightforward questioning of students and other witnesses
Speaker 1: who's testified about scopes discussions of evolution. But when Darrow
Speaker 1: started trying to bring in expert witnesses to discuss the
Speaker 1: science of evolution, Judge Rawlston refused to allow it. He
Speaker 1: said that the matter at hand was not whether evolution
Speaker 1: was scientifically valid, but whether Scopes had broken the law. Indeed,
Speaker 1: that would seem to be the point of the trial. Purportedly,
Speaker 1: with a key part of his defense strategy effectively torpedoed,
Speaker 1: Clarence Darrow took another tack. Instead of calling scientists to
Speaker 1: the stand testify as to the validity of the theory
Speaker 1: of evolution, he took the highly unusual step of calling
Speaker 1: William Jennings Bryan, the opposing counsel, to the stand on
Speaker 1: July twenty, to act as an expert witness on the
Speaker 1: validity of the Bible. At this point, the proceedings had
Speaker 1: been moved outdoors due to the oppressive heat in the
Speaker 1: courtroom and cracks developing in the ceiling under the weight
Speaker 1: of the newly installed fans. I just want to say again,
Speaker 1: the defense counsel calling to the stand the prosecutor to
Speaker 1: answer questions about something really not related to the issue. Hand,
Speaker 1: that's weird. That's it feels a little showbody like it's
Speaker 1: a big like yeah, drama move yeah. So, when Darrow
Speaker 1: asked if Brian claimed that everything in the Bible should
Speaker 1: be literally interpreted William Jennings, Bryan answered, quote, I believe
Speaker 1: everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is
Speaker 1: given there some of the Bible is given illustratively. Following
Speaker 1: that answer, Darrow asked him a bunch of questions about
Speaker 1: particular passages from the Bible, like Jonah being swallowed by
Speaker 1: a whale and spit out a whole after three days,
Speaker 1: and Joshua commanding the sun to sand still and the
Speaker 1: Great Flood, and whether the six day creation in Genesis
Speaker 1: was six actual twenty four hour days, and whether Eve
Speaker 1: was literally made from Adam's rib. Basically every Internet conversation
Speaker 1: of people of like atheist people asking people of faith
Speaker 1: questions about the Bible, Bryant's answers, in many cases sounded
Speaker 1: imprecise or contradictory, and at the end he accused Darrow
Speaker 1: of trying to use the court to slur the Bible.
Speaker 1: How this was received really depends on who you ask.
Speaker 1: Many religious faithful felt as though William Jennings Bryan had
Speaker 1: conducted himself admirably in the face of someone who was
Speaker 1: clearly trying to humiliate and trap him. Although some Biblical
Speaker 1: literalists were disappointed at his description of the six days
Speaker 1: of Creation as periods, not literal days. Others thought the
Speaker 1: whole exchange was an absurd waste of time unrelated to
Speaker 1: the case. But a lot of the news media, like
Speaker 1: we said, there were a hundred papers represented their portrayed
Speaker 1: Brian in an incredibly negative light, and the Baltimore Evening
Speaker 1: Sun H. L. Menkin wrote quote, Thus he fought his
Speaker 1: last fight, eager only for blood. It quickly became frenzy
Speaker 1: and preposterous, and after that pathetic all sense departed from him.
Speaker 1: He bit right and left like a dog with rabies.
Speaker 1: He descended to demagogi, so dreadful that his very associates blushed.
Speaker 1: His one yearning was to keep his yokels. Heated up
Speaker 1: to lead his forlorn mob against the foe. That foe
Speaker 1: alas refused to be alarmed. It insisted upon seeing the
Speaker 1: battle as a comedy. Even Darrow, who knew better, occasionally
Speaker 1: yielded to the prevailing spirit. Finally, he lured poor Brian
Speaker 1: into a folly almost incredible. The next day, July one,
Speaker 1: the judge ruled that Brian could not return to the stand.
Speaker 1: Darrow then asked for the jury to begin deliberations, recommending
Speaker 1: that they find the defendant guilty. The jury returned with
Speaker 1: a verdict less than ten minutes later. Scopes, who had
Speaker 1: never taken the stand himself, was guilty. He was fined
Speaker 1: one dollars. The a c o used goal at this point,
Speaker 1: and the reason that Darrow, who was the defense attorney,
Speaker 1: recommend that the jury find his client guilty, was to
Speaker 1: appeal this verdict, ideally to appeal it all the way
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court in a case that would find
Speaker 1: laws like the Butler Act unconstitutional nationwide. But that did
Speaker 1: not happen. At scopes appeal before the Tennessee Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: the verdict was overturned on a technicality, and the original
Speaker 1: trial judge Rawlson had specified that hundred dollar penalty, but
Speaker 1: because the penalty was greater than fifty dollars under the
Speaker 1: Tennessee Constitution, it should have been levied by the jury
Speaker 1: not by a judge, with the verdict overturned, and the
Speaker 1: Tennessee Supreme Court also issuing an opinion that the Butler
Speaker 1: Act was constitutional because it didn't mandate or establish any
Speaker 1: religious belief for practice the A c. O. You had
Speaker 1: nothing left to pursue related to the Butler Act in Tennessee.
Speaker 1: Five days after the end of the Scopes trial, William
Speaker 1: Jennings Bryan died in his sleep during an afternoon nap.
Speaker 1: He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with the words
Speaker 1: he kept the Faith on his tombstone, and the romanticized
Speaker 1: version of this story is that he died of humiliation
Speaker 1: after Darrow's questioning, or that he died of heartbreak after
Speaker 1: being denied the opportunity to give his closing statement at
Speaker 1: the trial. The two leading candidates for the actual cause
Speaker 1: of death are untreated diabetes and stroke. Whatever the cause,
Speaker 1: it was almost certainly exacerbated by the stress and physically
Speaker 1: grueling heat in the trial. From that point, Brian was
Speaker 1: viewed as a martyr within the anti evolution movement. Five
Speaker 1: years later, Brian College, originally called William Jennings Bryan University,
Speaker 1: opened in Dayton as a Christian liberal arts college. The
Speaker 1: Scopes trial had a somewhat contradictory aftermath. Tennessee in general
Speaker 1: and Dayton specifically were roundly laughed at in the news media,
Speaker 1: which was also particularly unkind to both religious fundamentalism and
Speaker 1: two laws forbidding the teaching of evolution, and yet similar
Speaker 1: laws were introduced, although unsuccessfully, in the legislatures of California, Delaware, Florida, Maine, Minnesota,
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, North Dakota, Virginia, and West Virginia in the
Speaker 1: years following the Scopes trial. Arkansas and Mississippi each past
Speaker 1: laws banning the teaching of evolution. Not long after, Even
Speaker 1: though only three states explicitly outlawed the teaching of evolution,
Speaker 1: many textbook publishers quietly removed references to it from their
Speaker 1: biology textbooks. This included a new Civic Biology whose seven
Speaker 1: edition never specifically references evolution and tiptoes around the basic concepts.
Speaker 1: At the same time, the coverage of the trial and
Speaker 1: of William Jennings Bryant's death helped coalesce the anti evolution
Speaker 1: movement from sort of a scattered collection of various denominations
Speaker 1: to a solid social movement and Darrow's relentless framing of
Speaker 1: evolution and religion, as this either or proposition submits to
Speaker 1: the standard for how the issue would be discussed four
Speaker 1: years to come. Attempts to repeal the Butler Act began
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty five, but failed. It stayed on the
Speaker 1: books until nineteen sixty seven. Governor Austin P died in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven, and his signature on the Butler Act
Speaker 1: largely overshadowed the rest of his legacy for decades. It
Speaker 1: would also take decades for a case relating to the
Speaker 1: teaching of evolution to make it all the way to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. In nineteen sixty eight, the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: heard the case of Susan Epperson, an Arkansas zoology teacher
Speaker 1: who had been found guilty of breaking that state's law
Speaker 1: prohibiting the teaching of evolution. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled
Speaker 1: in Epperson versus Arkansas that laws prohibiting the teaching of
Speaker 1: evolution violated the First Amendment, and in this case, Epperson
Speaker 1: faced the same dilemma that Scopes did back in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty five. Arkansas law had made it illegal quote to
Speaker 1: teach the theory or doctrine that mankind ascended or descended
Speaker 1: from a lower order of animals end quote, But the
Speaker 1: textbook that the state had adopted in nineteen sixty five
Speaker 1: had a chapter on that very thing. After Everson versus Arkansas,
Speaker 1: most states that had previously banned the teaching of evolution
Speaker 1: instead mandated that equal time be spent on teaching creationism.
Speaker 1: This includes Tennessee, which passed the nation's first law requiring
Speaker 1: equal time for the Biblical account of creation. In nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, a federal appeals court ruled this law unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: Two years later, that ruling applied only to Tennessee, but
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven, the Supreme Court ruled that a
Speaker 1: Louisiana law entitled quote, the Balanced Treatment for Creation Science
Speaker 1: and Evolution Science in Public School Instruction Act was unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: That case, known as Edward versus Aguiard, applied nationally. From there,
Speaker 1: most states that had passed equal time laws instead began
Speaker 1: to frame the conversation as one of intelligent design line
Speaker 1: or began mandating disclaimers that evolution is just a theory.
Speaker 1: In two thousand five, a U. S. District court found
Speaker 1: that teaching intelligent design in public schools was unconstitutional in
Speaker 1: a case known as kits Miller versus Dover because intelligent
Speaker 1: design quote cannot uncouple itself from its creationist and thus
Speaker 1: religious antecedents. The same year, in Salman versus Cobb County
Speaker 1: School District, a federal judge examined the question of whether
Speaker 1: stickers reading quote evolution is a theory not a fact,
Speaker 1: concerning the origin of living things end quote, which the
Speaker 1: school was putting onto textbooks that had information about evolution,
Speaker 1: whether that violated the Constitution, And after going back and
Speaker 1: forth through several levels of the courts, that case was
Speaker 1: ultimately settled out of court in favor of the plaintiffs,
Speaker 1: who were the ones who had objected to the use
Speaker 1: of the stickers. So clearly, as states find new ways
Speaker 1: to work around this issue, it's probably one that will
Speaker 1: continue to come up in the courts. And in the meantime, Dayton, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: actually holds an annual Scopes Trial festival. If you want
Speaker 1: to get in on that. If if you yeah, it's uh.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting phenomenon because it's partially because I mean,
Speaker 1: Dayton was really lampooned a lot after this, uh and
Speaker 1: and Tennessee also got a lot of just terrible press afterward. Um.
Speaker 1: So some of the Scopes festival is meant to try
Speaker 1: to reclaim some of like the less like let's make
Speaker 1: complete fun of you side, some more like own this
Speaker 1: is the thing that happened in our town that was
Speaker 1: historically important, and not like the way that the media
Speaker 1: portrayed us was totally accurate, Like not like that at all. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's definitely like there's a play and there's a
Speaker 1: festival happens every year. Are there both monkeys and chimpanzees?
Speaker 1: I do not know? Um. As I was first looking
Speaker 1: for artwork because you know, on our website we always
Speaker 1: have pictures, a picture that goes along with the episode.
Speaker 1: And as I was looking for artwork before I had
Speaker 1: done the actual research, like I hadn't gotten into the
Speaker 1: meat of it yet, and I kept finding this picture
Speaker 1: of a chimpanzee in a suit, and I was like,
Speaker 1: what is this? Is this some weird stock art somebody
Speaker 1: came up? No, it was the actual chimpanzee in the suit.
Speaker 1: Um that was doing public appearances, doing public appearances at
Speaker 1: the drug store during Good Scripts trial. What's the listener
Speaker 1: mail situation. I have some listener mail. It's another piece
Speaker 1: of mail that we got following our podcast on the
Speaker 1: Tuskegee syphilis study, and it is from Rachel. Rachel says, Hi,
Speaker 1: Tracy and Holly. I stumbled across your podcast a little
Speaker 1: over a year ago, and your show quickly found its
Speaker 1: way to my history loving heart. You're my trustee companions
Speaker 1: on long drives to visit my boyfriend. I'm writing specifically
Speaker 1: in regard to your recent podcast about the Tuskeye syphilis study.
Speaker 1: I was a history underground ad and my graduate degree
Speaker 1: is in public health, specifically epidemiology, so all of your
Speaker 1: health related topics bring me such joy. I loved your
Speaker 1: discussion about the topic, as painful as subject as it is.
Speaker 1: I would just like to add a tiny note. The
Speaker 1: horrible events at Tuskegee have shaped public health in a
Speaker 1: very profound way. Students and health fields across the country
Speaker 1: and the world have learned about the atrocities of this study,
Speaker 1: and multiple safeguards, such as the Institutional Review Board i
Speaker 1: RB now exists to extensively review any study that includes
Speaker 1: human subjects. As you mentioned in the podcast, the study
Speaker 1: itself was horrendously unethical informed consent aside. Institutional review boards
Speaker 1: are today's safeguard against unethical research studies and require at
Speaker 1: least one member who was unaffiliated with the research institutions.
Speaker 1: An opportunity to serve on an i r B is
Speaker 1: likely available to some listeners. While these men and their
Speaker 1: families were tremendously harmed, it brings me some peace to
Speaker 1: know that steps have been taken to prevent others from
Speaker 1: mixed experiencing what they did. And then Rachel continues with
Speaker 1: some suggestions for future episodes. Thank you so much, Rachel
Speaker 1: for sending that. We've talked about a few of the
Speaker 1: things that UM came about in the aftermath of the
Speaker 1: Tuskee Study, but not specifically the i r B. So
Speaker 1: if you would like to write to us about this
Speaker 1: or any other podcast, we're at History Podcast at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. We're also on Facebook at facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash miss in History and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: miss in History. Are Tumbler, and our pinterests and our
Speaker 1: Instagram are all also at miss in History. You can
Speaker 1: come to our parent company's website, which is how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com find information about just about anything your
Speaker 1: heart desires, including all kinds of fascinating information about evolution.
Speaker 1: You can come to our website, which is missed in
Speaker 1: history dot com, where you will find the show notes
Speaker 1: for this and all of our other episodes that Holly
Speaker 1: and I have done together, and an archive of every
Speaker 1: episode that has ever been on the show. You can
Speaker 1: do all that and a whole lot more at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com or miss than history dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
Speaker 1: howstuff works dot com.