Scopes Trial in Dayton TN 1925
- Rhea County was rural, dry, fundamentalist
- John W. Butler bill passed Tenn. legislature March 25, 1925
- Dayton mining engineer George Rappelyea accepted ACLU offer
- meeting at Frank Robinson's drugstore, voluntary arrest of Scopes May 7
- H. L. Mencken came from Baltimore Sun
- skeptic of all ideologies, "booboisie"
- debunking editor of American Mercury magazine
- W.J. Bryan came from Coral Gables, Florida
- will of majority, absolutism & fundamentalism
- George Washburn would build Bryan University
- Clarence Darrow came from Chicago
- rights of individual, relativism & humanism
- defended Nathan Leopold & Richard Loeb 1924
- called scientific experts, quoted Nietzsche
- Darrow helped by Arthur G. Hayes, Dudley F. Malone
- Fri., July 10 - jury, 100 reporters, AP, WGN radio, newsreels
- Mon., July 13 - opening statements
- Tues., July 14 - Darrow motion to quash - storm
- Wed., July 15 - Bryan rests case of prosecution
- Thurs., July 16 - Darrow tries to call 7 scientists
- Fri., July 17 - Judge J. Raulston rules against experts
- Mon., July 20 - trial moved outside courthouse
- Tues., July 21 - jury returns guilty verdict in 8 mins.
- Bryan died five days later during nap
- Florida hurricane Sept. 18, 1926, killed 4000
- Darrow died 1938; his birthday Apr. 18 was celebrated every year in Chicago
- H. L. Mencken died 1956 at the age of 76
- Supreme Court overturned the Butler Bill and all other state anti-evolution laws in 1968 as violating the First Amendment right to free speech
- Kelly Seagraves of the Creation Science Research Center in San Diego sued the state of California for teaching only evolution and denying the teaching of creation science
- Supreme Court overturned Louisiana law requiring teaching of creationism in 1987 as violating separation of church and state (creationism was defined as religion, not science)
- trial represented conflict of old and new cultures, rural v. urban, science v. religion, majority v. minority, isolation v. mass media
- trial portrayed in 1960 film Inherit the Wind