#scopes trial

100 years ago this week, the Scopes Trial began in Dayton, Tennessee. John Scopes, a high school biology teacher, was accused of violating the Butler Act, which prohibited teaching evolution in public schools.

Our current exhibit highlights the "trial of the century," making use of some of our material related to Clarence Darrow, the famous trial attorney who defended Scopes. Following the trial, the two became friends and kept in touch. This 1927 letter was written to Darrow from Scopes, who was in Venezuela as part of a hired oil exploration trip while still studying geology at the University of Chicago. Check out the three photos also enclosed in the envelope!

One hundred years ago, the small town of Dayton, Tenn., became the unlikely stage for one of the most sensational trials in American history.

A local substitute teacher, John Scopes, was charged with the crime of teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

At the time, it was illegal in Tennessee to "teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals."

The Scopes Trial – Scientist of the Day

The Scopes trial began exactly a century ago, on this day, July 10, 1925, in a county courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee.

The trial of John Scopes for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in defiance of Tennessee law began on July 10, 1925.