Abstract
Tennesseans were used to hot days in July. But the temperatures in the crowded Rhea County courthouse had become so oppressive, and the crush of spectators so dangerous, that on Monday morning, July 20, 1925, Judge John T. Raulston ordered the Scopes “monkey” trial proceedings to be continued outside. Workers had set up a temporary platform under the shade of some cottonwood trees, and three thousand curious onlookers craned their necks to get a view of the trial’s newest development. In this most dramatic moment of the trial, prosecutor William Jennings Bryan took the witness stand himself. What happened that day in Dayton was unexpected. It was near the end of the trial, and many of the visiting journalists had already gone home. Those newspaper writers back in Chicago, New York, and Baltimore missed the most climactic confrontation of the entire dramatic trial.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Edward Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 187–90.
Trial transcript from Jeffrey P. Moran, The Scopes Trial: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2002), 156.
James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York: Basic Books, 1991), 43 [italics in original].
See David B. Tyack, “Onward Christian Soldiers: Religion in the American Common School,” in History and Education: The Educational Uses of the Past, ed. Paul Nash, 212–55 (New York: Random House, 1970);
Donald E. Boles, The Bible, Religion, and the Public Schools (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1963);
James C. Carper and Thomas C. Hunt, The Dissenting Tradition in American Education (New York: Peter Lang, 2007);
Warren A. Nord, Religion & American Education: Rethinking a National Dilemma (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1995).
Morris P. Fiorina, Samuel J. Abrams, and Jeremy C. Pope, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America (New York: Longman, 2004).
See also Benjamin Justice, The War that Wasn’t: Religious Conflict and Compromise in the Common Schools of New York State, 1865–1900 (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2005); David Brooks, “The Middle Muscles In,” New York Times, November 9, 2006, A33.
Ward W. Keesecker, Legal Status of Bible Reading and Religious Instruction in Public Schools (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1930), 2.
W. S. Fleming, God in Our Public Schools, 3rd ed. (1942; repr., Pittsburgh, PA: National Reform Association, 1947), 143–44. The following states (with the year the law passed) required daily Bible reading: Massachusetts (1826), Pennsylvania (1913), Tennessee (1915), New Jersey (1916), Alabama (1919), Georgia (1921), Delaware (1923), Maine (1923), Kentucky (1924), Florida (1925), Idaho (1925), Arkansas (1930).
Mark Taylor Dalhouse, An Island in the Lake of Fire: Bob Jones University, Fundamentalism, and the Separatist Movement (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 152–53;
Daniel L. Turner, Standing without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 1997), 15–21, 263–69.
See also Adam Laats, “Inside Out: Christian Day Schools and the Transformation of Conservative Protestant Educational Activism, 1962–1990,” in Inequity in Education: A Historical Perspective, ed. Debra Meyers and Burke Miller (Lexington, KY: Rowman and Littlefield Press, 2009), 183–209.
Timothy Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875–1982 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 238.
See New York Times coverage, including the following: “Paint W. J. Bryan as a ‘Medievalist,’” March 2, 1922, 12; “Bryan Renews War on Darwin Theory,” April 14, 1923, 6; “Anti-Darwin Campaigns Stir South and West,” June 10, 1923, X2; “Assail Darwinian Theory,” August 1, 1924, 26; “Science and Religion,” April 5, 1925, E4; “Evolution Trial Raises Two Sharp Issues,” May 31, 1925, XX4; “Evolution Battle to Go to Congress; New Law is Sought,” July 24, 1925, 1; “Professors to War on Evolution Laws,” January 1, 1927, 1; “College Professors, Scientists and Fundamentalists Prepare to Do Battle—The Two Sides Presented,” January 30, 1927, XX3; “Protest in Florida on Anti-Darwin Bill,” April 30, 1927, 3; “Missouri Kills Anti-Evolution Bill,” February 9, 1927, 8; “Act on Evolution Bills,” February 10, 1927, 38; “Beat Anti-Evolution Bill,” April 14, 1927, 24. For a brief summary of state laws, see Richard David Wilhelm, “A Chronology and Analysis of Regulatory Actions Relating to the Teaching of Evolution in Public Schools” (PhD dissertation, University of Texas–Austin, 1978), 61–64. Wilhelm does not include in his list an Iowa bill of 1923 (House File 657), two 1926 Mississippi bills (House Bill 39 and Senate Bill 214), a 1927 West Virginia House Bill (358), or Arkansas’ initiative measure of 1928.
See also Maynard Shipley, “Growth of the Anti-Evolution Movement,” Current History XXXII (1930): 330–32. Many historians have accepted Shipley’s numbers without question, but he made a few errors. For instance, he assigned Kentucky’s and South Carolina’s first debates to 1921, when in fact both considered the bills in 1922. He omits one Tennessee bill, considered in 1923, one Iowa bill in 1923, one Georgia bill in 1925, two Louisiana bills in 1926, a South Carolina bill in 1927, and two Alabama bills in 1927. He does not include bills that repeated similar legislation in the same state in the same year. He also asserts a consideration of a resolution in Oklahoma in 1929 and a bill in Kentucky in 1928 for which I can find confirmation in no other source. He includes in his total state executive actions in California and North Carolina. He states that Atlanta, Georgia passed a citywide antievolution rule, when in fact it did not. Atlanta’s rule only stipulated that teachers be questioned about their teaching of evolution. Bills, resolutions, or riders known primarily as antievolution measures were introduced in Alabama (SJR 55, 1923; HB 969, 1927; HB 1103, 1927; HB 30, 1927), Arkansas (HB 34, 1927; Act 1, 1928), California (AB 145, 1927), Delaware (HB 92, 1927), Florida (HCR 7, 1923; HB 691, 1925; HB 87, 1927), Georgia (HR 58, 1923; HR 93, 1923; HB 731, 1924; Amendment, 1925), Iowa (HF 657, 1923), Kentucky (HB 260, 1922; HB 191, 1922; SB 136, 1922; HB 96, 1926), Louisiana (HB 41, 1926; HB 208, 1926; HB 279, 1926; HB 314, 1926), Maine (HP 834, 1927), Minnesota (SB 701, 1927; HB 837, 1927), Mississippi (HB 39, 1926; HB 77, 1926; SB 214, 1926), Missouri (HB 89, 1927), New Hampshire (HB 268, 1927), North Carolina (HR 10, 1925; HB 263, 1927), North Dakota (HB 227, 1927), Oklahoma (HB 197, 1923; HB 81, 1927), South Carolina (Amendment, 1922; HB 60, 1927), Tennessee (SB 681, 1923; HB 947, 1923; SB 133, 1925; HB 185, 1925; HB 252, 1925), Texas (HB 97, 1923; HCR 6, 1923; HB 378, 1925; HB 90, 1929), and West Virginia (HB 153, 1923; HB 175, 1925; Resolution, 1927; HB 264, 1927; HB 358, 1927). Many of these states considered several versions of proposed resolutions or legislation. Evolution-restricting acts were passed in Florida, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. In addition, the U.S. Congress heard at least two antievolution arguments during the 1920s.
See Willard B. Gatewood Jr., ed., Controversy in the Twenties: Fundamentalism, Modernism, and Evolution (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1969), 321–29.
Alabama House Bill 30, Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Alabama 1927, 89; Alabama House Bill 969, Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Alabama 1927, 1622, 1983, 2040; Alabama House Bill 1103, Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Alabama 1927, 2153, 2426–27, 2596; Arkansas House Bill 34, Journal of the House of Representatives for the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas 1927, 68–69, 263, 323–24; California Assembly Bill 145, Journal of the Assembly during the Forty-Seventh Session of the Legislature of the State of California 1927, 182, 445, 482, 543–44, 566, 2639–41; New Hampshire House Bill 268, “Journal of the House of Representatives 1927,” Journals New Hampshire Senate and House 1927, 154, 274; North Dakota House Bill 222, State of North Dakota Journal of the House of the Twentieth Session of the Legislative Assembly 1927, 519, 1022; Oklahoma House Bill 81, Journal of the House of Representatives of the Legislature of the State of Oklahoma 1927, 281, 305; South Carolina House Bill 60, Journal of the House of Representatives of the First Session of the 78th General Assembly of the State of South Carolina 1927, 70, 1128, 1482; West Virginia House Resolution, Journal of the House of Delegates of West Virginia 1927, 65, 97–98; West Virginia House Bill 264; Journal of the House of Delegates of West Virginia 1927, 104, 663; West Virginia House Bill 358, Journal of the House of Delegates of West Virginia 1927, 129; North Carolina House Bill 263, Journal of the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina 1927, 85, 241; Delaware House Bill 92, Delaware House Journal 1927, 156; Maine House Paper 834, Legislative Record of the Eighty-Third Legislature of the State of Maine 1927, 239, 242, 247–49, 313, 835; Minnesota Senate Bill 701, Journal of the Senate of the State of Minnesota 1927, 508–9; Florida House Bill 87, Florida House Journal 1927, 3000–3001; Wilhelm, “Chronology and Analysis,” 373 [Missouri House Bill No. 89]. See also Maynard Shipley, “A Year of the Monkey War,” The Independent 119 (October 1, 1927): 326–45. Shipley left out any mention of South Carolina’s House Bill number 60.
Kenneth K. Bailey, “The Antievolution Crusade of the Nineteen-Twenties” (PhD dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1954), 68–69, 71, 222–24;
Gerald Skoog, “The Coverage of Human Evolution in High School Biology Textbooks in the 20th Century and in Current State Science Standards,” Science and Education 14 (2005): 398.
Willard B. Gatewood Jr., Preachers, Pedagogues and Politicians: The Evolution Controversy in North Carolina, 1920–1927 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1966), 149.
See George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870–1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980); Larson, Summer for the Gods;
Ronald L. Numbers, The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006);
Ronald L. Numbers, Darwinism Comes to America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999);
Michael Lienesch, In the Beginning: Fundamentalism, the Scopes Trial, and the Making of the Antievolution Movement (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007). See also Gatewood, Preachers, Pedagogues and Politicians; Wilhelm, “Chronology and Analysis”; Bailey, “The Antievolution Crusade”;
LeRoy Johnson, “The Evolution Controversy During the 1920’s” (PhD dissertation, New York University, 1954);
Virginia Gray, “Anti-Evolution Sentiment and Behavior: The Case of Arkansas,” Journal of American History 62 (1970): 353–65.
Jonathan Zimmerman, Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 1–8.
Copyright information
© 2010 Adam Laats
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Laats, A. (2010). Introduction. In: Fundamentalism and Education in the Scopes Era. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230106796_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230106796_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-38507-2
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-10679-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)