The 1920’s, also known as the “Roaring Twenties”, was a period of peace and prosperity that overshadowed the losses of the Great War. There were flappers, Prohibition; and widespread popularity of Jazz music. Apart from this culture, the Scopes Monkey Trial would become a widespread controversy between traditionalism and modernity. Traditionalists would have a more conservative view, while the Modernists would have a more liberal behavior.
John Scopes, a substitute biology teacher was arrested and charged with violating the Butler Act, a Tennessee law which prohibited teachers from teaching the Darwin Theory of Evolution in a science-related course. The American Civil Liberties Union created a plan to find a teacher willing to teach evolution in order to test the Butler Act, which forbade the essence that anyone teaching any theory that shunned the Biblical story of creationism. Scopes agreed to be arrested and have the case be taken to court. However, Scopes had simply reviewed the textbook chapter on evolution. The traditionalists would see this as a threat to their interests and the issue hit the country stronger than a tornado. Everyone was glued to their radios—it was the first broadcasted radio trial--except the campers and hundreds of reporters near the Dayton, Tennessee courthouse. Traditionalists would be outraged by the appearance of speakeasies, flappers, illegal boozing, popular activities of the Roaring Twenties and especially the Darwinian Theory. Their strong Christian beliefs from the Holy Bible stated how God created the world and man and woman. A traditionalist’s beliefs would not accept the idea of evolution because the Bible said that Man did not evolve but was created by God—the Divine Creation in one day.
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...”? The reason why the trial was called the “Monkey Trial” was because evolution suggested that humans evolved from apes. It was almost a comical situation around the courthouse and town. Vendors sold sandwiches, drinks called the ‘monkey fizz’, toy monkeys, and other monkey souvenirs. One butcher shop had a sign to say that “We handle all kinds of meat except monkey.” This would be a comic relief from a situation that was heated and intense.
The Scopes Monkey Trial was a beginning of independent thought throughout the country. After the trial, it stayed on the books until a 1967 Supreme Court Case overturned the Butler Act and declared it unconstitutional. In the end, evolution can finally be taught; students can examine the research that Charles Darwin did and understand why Darwin came to his belief in evolution. People can study this and decide for themselves.
Monkey Girl: Evolution, Religion, and The battle for America’s Soul, is a non-fiction based novel that was written by Edward Humes. Edward Humes is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, who was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Humes has also written various publications, which include Los Angeles Magazine, Sierra Magazine, Readers Digest, and many more (Humes). Throughout Monkey Girl: Evolution, Religion, and The battle for America’s Soul, the focus is on the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Trial. It all began in 2004 when the Dover Area School District of Pennsylvania decided to modify the curriculum in biology, which required that Intelligent Design to be taught as a part of the scientific theory of evolution
The stage was set in Dayton, Tennessee. The leading actor in this show was a twenty five-year-old science teacher named John T. Scopes. Scopes was under the direction of advancing America. The playbill read The Scopes “Monkey” Trial. In 1925 John T. Scopes was encouraged to challenge the Butler Law. This law had been passed by a small town in Dayton, Tennessee to prohibit teaching contra to those in the Bible. Teaching from an evolutionary text, Scopes broke the law and gained the attention of the National media. The concentration of the media on the Scopes Trial effectively presented the contrasting ideas of a religious town and an evolving country.
In Inherit the Wind, a 1960s film adaptation directed by Stanley Kramer, the battle between religion and science was tested, portrayed through the Scopes Trial of 1925. In the trail, John Scopes, a high school science teacher, was accused and convicted of teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, curriculum that was forbidden by Tennessee state law. It is clear that a focal point of the film was the discussion of whether religion should be the driving force behind education, or if science and empirical study is a better alternative. This discussion is alive and well in 2017, crucial in a time where Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, is a known believer in theories of ‘intelligent design,’ a theory that suggests divine guidance in the
The trial in the movie and historically was cause by a violation of the Butler Act. The movie simply portrays this law as a statute passed by the state of Tennessee that prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools. In reality, the Butler Act only made it illegal to teach that humans evolved. During 1925 in the state of Tennesse, one could teach that all species evolved except humans and not have violated the Butler Act. The film also demonstrates that the Butler Act favored fundamentalist Christianity over science in public schools. This is continually emphasized in the movie by the speech and actions, such as the parade when Brady arrives in Tennessee, of the characters who are all clearly fundamentalist Christians. In reality, the Butler Act was intended to actually increase the neutrality of the two views. This is because the Bible could not be taught in public schools, yet this new scien...
The 1920’s were a time of change. New ideas were becoming more readily experimented with and even accepted by large portions of the population. Some of these included jazz music and the fight against the alcoholic prohibition. The radical idea I will focus on in this paper, however, is Evolution. It is a theory that had been around for over half a century before the 20’s but had only more recently caught on in the US. It contradicted the Christian theory of Divine Creation as described in the Bible. This caused many religious fundamentalists to fight against it. They took their battle to the law books, and they were challenged by pro-evolution modernists in the Scopes "Monkey Trial" of 1925.
New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84. The 'Secondary' of the 'S “Trial by Jury.” Time 3 Oct. 1955: 18-19. “The Place, the Acquittal.”
Anyone with even a moderate background in science has heard of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. Since the publishing of his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, Darwin’s ideas have been debated by everyone from scientists to theologians to ordinary lay-people. Today, though there is still severe opposition, evolution is regarded as fact by most of the scientific community and Darwin’s book remains one of the most influential ever written.
The “Monkey Trial” in 1925 was one of the most famous clashes in history between the Bible and evolution. The concept of the play was based on the Scopes Trial, but characters, actions, and words were altered. During the trial, William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow went to court to try John Scopes for illegally teaching evolution, causing major complications in Dayton, Tennessee. In the play Inherit the Wind, the character, Henry Drummond, parallels his real-life counterpart, Clarence Darrow, through ¬his appearance, beliefs, and actions.
Introductory Paragraph: The 1920s were years of political controversy and defying social. standards, this time in Canada would mark an era which would pioneer the way for those to come in. regards to daring fashion, radical opinions, progressive technologies and political changes. “ The Roaring Twenties” is a phrase often used when describing this period of time in North America. phrase is justified by the cultural and artistic diversity of the time, it was a period of glamour and prosperity for many of us.
In 1925, a teacher named John T Scopes was arrested for teaching the Theory of Evolution as this contradicted religion and their beliefs that God created the world.
Since the time that teaching evolution in public schools was banned as heresy and taboo for contradicting the Bible, most public school systems today take an opposite approach in which creationism is seldom ta...
Wukovits, John F., ed. America's Decades: The 1920's. San Diego: Greehaven Press Inc., 2000. Print.
The 1920’s was a period of rapid growth and change in America. After World War I, American’s were introduced to a lifestyle of lavishness they had never encountered before. It was a period of radical thought and ideas. It was in this time period that the idea of the Harlem Renaissance was born. The ideology behind the Harlem Renaissance was to create the image of the “New Negro”.
The argument of whether or not humans evolved from monkeys is constantly tossed around in our society with the emergence of more and more scientific discoveries. Evolution across such a broad spectrum is known as macroevolution, or changes that happen at or above the species level. Both popular and academic discourses debate the religious and moral issues associated with macroevolution and its propositions. The main person behind the idea of evolution was Charles Darwin who theorized that everything comes from a common ancestor. In the magazine article “Was Darwin Wrong?” featured in a 2004 issue of National Geographic, David Quammen discusses whether or not Darwin’s findings in evolution theory were correct. This article was targeted for
simple terms: either Darwin or the Bible was true.” (265) The road to the trial began when Tennessee passed the Butler Act in 1925 banning the teaching of evolution in secondary schools. It was only a matter of time before a young biology teacher, John T. Scopes, prompted by the ACLU, tested the law. Spectators and newspapermen came from all over to witness whether science or religion would win the day. Yet, below all the hype, the trial had a deeper meaning.