Tennessee Bans Teaching Evolution: The Scopes Trial Is Coming
The biology teacher volunteered to get arrested. John Scopes wasn't even sure he'd actually taught evolution — he'd substituted for the regular teacher and couldn't remember covering that chapter. But Dayton, Tennessee's businessmen needed a defendant for their publicity stunt to put their struggling town on the map. They convinced the 24-year-old to stand trial under the new Butler Act, which banned teaching human evolution in public schools. The plan worked too well. William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow turned the courtroom into a circus that drew reporters from across the globe. Scopes was convicted and fined $100, but the law stayed on Tennessee's books until 1967. The whole spectacle was staged for tourism, and we're still teaching the controversy it manufactured.
March 13, 1925
101 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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