What was the Scopes Monkey Trial?
In July 1925 John T. Scopes (1900–1970), a school teacher from Dayton, Tennessee, was tried for breaking a Tennessee law that made it illegal to teach the theory of evolution (gradual development over a long period of time). The theory was based on the work of English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882), who argued in his book Origin of the Species that humans had developed through the process of evolution from apelike creatures. When reporters began covering the Scopes trial, they dubbed it the “Monkey Trial.” The evolution law, the Butler Act, had been passed three months earlier, on March 21, 1925, by state of Tennessee in response to constituents’ religious beliefs. (Members of religious groups believed that humans had been created by God and not through evolution.) Contending that the Butler Act violated citizens’ rights, the American Civil Liberties Union sought a…
