Talks about the Motion Picture industry and the codes that sought to tamp down on sexuality in films. He addresses the scopes trial in which a Tennessee High School teacher faces charges of unlawfully teaches evolution in a statefunded school. Now in my last lecture and in our debate on monday, which i think went pretty well, you might have been left with a question in your minds, what was the legacy of world war i for American Society . Now the politics of the United States definitely veered to the right during the 1920s. Republican president s fairly conservative ones were elected by land slides in 1920, 1924, 1928. Congress was under control of the republicans throughout the 1920s. With support of congress, republican president s signed bills which rolled back the income tax increases passed during world war i. Leading social movements on the left, labor unions and socialist party both lost members during the war. The socialist party was never a factor in american politics again after the 1920 election. And people on the left generally whether people we now consider to be liberals, former progressives or radicals were all on the defensive in the 1920s. The most popular president in the 1920s Calvin Coolidge who took office when harding died of a heart attack and reelected in 1924. Famously said in the 1920s the business of america is business. It was a prosperous time for a lot of americans, though certainly not all. Stock prices were fairly high. Wages were either stable or going up, depending on what occupation you were in. Farmers are not doing, as well as theyve done during world war 1, when farm prices went really high as they often do in wars but nevertheless, in many places in the country they were not doing so badly. There was one piece of legislation passed in 1924, one of actually a number of pieces of legislation on the issue of immigration. Which gave a sense both of the power of what you might call the old stock americans, americans from mostly western european backgrounds, white in every case. But also gave a sense i think of the vulnerability that those people felt because so many catholics and eastern orthodox and jewish people had moved into the United States beginning in the 1880s and 1890s. So many africanamericans had moved to the north and big cities and big cities in the south as well during the war as you know. This bill was passed in 1924. Its called the johnson reed act named after two of the people who were the key senator and key congressman who put their names to the legislation and got it through congress. What this bill did is it restricted immigration in the United States after that point to 2 of the number of people from any foreign nation who had been in the United States according to the 1890 census. This sounds a little abstract. What it basically means is that the percentage of immigrants allowed to come in the country was dependent on the percentage of immigrants from that country, from that particular country in 1890. 1890 was just at the beginning of the socalled new immigration, just the beginning of the influx of people from places like italy, russia, poland, greece, syria, other places in eastern and southern europe. And the 1924 law completely excluded of immigrants from east asia except for filipinos who came from an american colony. So basically the quotas, and they were called quotas, set down from 1924 on to 1965, this law lasted roughly more than 40 years, it was much easier to come to the country if you were from ireland, if you were from new england, if you were from norway, for example, because a number of those people in the United States was pretty high in 1890, much harder if you were from russia, poland or findland, lets say, and impossible if you are from japan, china or korea. So the United States was supposed to remain an anglosaxon and predominantly protestant nation forever on ward. That was the idea, that was the hope of the people who passed this bill. The republican majority in congress and some southern democrats voted for it, as well. The only votes against this law really were from people from the ethnic cities, from new york and from chicago and from philadelphia. Places like that. Many of them catholic and jewish. But they didnt have enough votes in congress to stop the bill from being passed and certainly not enough political clout to stop president Calvin Coolidge from signing it. As i said, this law was a sign of a certain fear and weakness i think among the whiting and grow saxon majority, as well. And the weakness can be glimpsed in what was going on in American Culture in the 1920s. Which is the main topic of the lecture today. The 20s saw a number you have fierce conflicts between supporters of an older white, mostly protestant and very deeply religious and mostly rural order. The majority, but a majority that was felt itself in peril. And the other side, those both immigrant and native born who had a more tolerant or at least a looser sense of personal morality and who lived mostly in modern cosmopolitan cities with a mix of church goers and secularists. You can see echos of the split in our own time in arguments between those who support gay marriage and those who oppose it to arguments over those who think Sex Education in schools is great and those who dont think it is at all. Those who think that the teaching of the revolution in science classes is nondebatable and part of science and creationism and intelligent design should be taught along with teaching evolution. This is not an accident. Cultural clashes and conflicts have a way of lasting a long time and even when the specific issues that are were fought over in the 20s dont necessarily last as long, legacy of those battles does last a long time. In many ways if youre in some parts of the country today, these culture clashes dont seem quite so much in the past at all. What i want to do today is discuss in specifics is three sites of this conflict. First the battles of over prohibition which was the law in the 1920s, second clashes over the content of movies, Motion Pictures which became in the 1920s the most popular art in america, and then lastly the conflict over whether the darwinian theory of evolution should be taught in Public Schools. Because laws were being passed in certain states in the 1920s to actually forbid the teaching of evolution in Public Schools. And as well see, the rationale for that in part was that the parents in Many School Districts didnt want evolution taught in their kids schools. So youve got an issue of free speech and the claims of science versus the claims of democracy if you will. But first prohibition, which youve heard something about already. But not since its been law. Whoops. This is a glimpse here of revenue agents busting a still somewhere in one of the cities in the northeast. Together with these mason jars you see here that were about to be filled by this bootleg liquor. The 18th amendment to the constitution goes into effect january 1920. It was ratified by enough states in 1919 and by the way, Congress Passed it over the veto of president woodrow wilson. So you can see how popular it was. Prohibited the sale and manufacture but not the consumption of alcohol. Thats interesting, by the way, to note. The 18th amendment did not stop individuals who actually had liquor in their hands from drinking it. The idea was to stop the business of alcohol. The manufacture of it. The sale of it. The commerce in alcohol, the traffic in alcohol as it was known. The thought was that if you stop people from being able to manufacture it and distribute it and sell it, eventually people will stop drinking it as well. But congress didnt want to pillory an individual who might have gotten liquor. In fact, before the amendment was ratified, people would stock up as much liquor as they could if they could afford to so theyd be able to drink it legally after the amendment was ratified. Contrary to conventional wisdom, prohibition, even though at the did institute a regime of a lot of lawlessness, a lot of people broke the law, especially in big cities, did actually reduce drinking overall in america. Places where prohibition was popular and there are many of them, drinking did go down. There was sort of an informal prohibition, if you will. Neighbors would enforce it against other neighbors, for example. So in Rural America in, small town america, in the south, for example, parts of the west, drinking did go down and quite dramatically. But it went up in big cities. The act that was passed along with the prohibition amendment when it was ratified to enforce the act called the volstead act, it was named after a minnesota congressman who authored it from granite falls, minnesota, and it was on one hand a tremendous increase in the power of government. Government after all was given the power to go in and bust up any place where liquor was sold anywhere in the country and also to have Border Agents across the border to canada specially and the coast guard was empowered to stop boats from coming in to florida and other places where it could offload liquor. But on the other hand, the congress did not appropriate enough funds to hire enough people to do all that the volsted act was supposed to be doing. Only 1500 agents were hired to enforce the act where in a country of over 100 Million People was probably not enough. Yet, as i said, it was informally enforced by many protestant americans and they continued to support prohibition, not just because they thought it was a good idea for people not to drink, not because they believed that the liquor business was a sinful enterprise driving people to do terrible things but also because they thought of it as a symbolic stand against the supposedly hedonistic libertarian values of the modern cities against the alien custom of catholic and eastern orthodox immigrants many of whom took drinking as just part of their culture. There were older arguments given as well which continued to have a lot of salience during the time prohibition was law. One of the arguments youve heard about before was that a drunken man was an abusive human being, that he would beat up his wife, that he would neglect his children, that he would be a terrible worker. This is one of the more popular illustrations of this attitude. Also added to it was the antiimmigrant side of it. Here you see two men surreptitiously unloading liquor from europe, from russia, going across the border from canada to the u. S. This was an immigrant invasion, an alien invasion not of individuals so much but of immigrant alien commerce. Yes . [ inaudible question ] yeah. Got point. From china, exactly. Tongs were supposedly gangs of chinese who terrorized the chinese immigrant population, also employed chinese gangsters. Ill talk a little bit more about how the fear of gangsters becomes part of this. So, you had an urban immigrant split. You had older arguments about protecting women and children. You had a sense of the fear of immigrants being married with the fear of prohibition, with the fear of prohibition not being enforced the way it should be enforced. Youve got a combustible mix here. Now, of course, what made this combustible mix so much apparent to Many Americans was the fact that in the bigger cities, in the more cosmopolitan places among very wealthy people where there are immigrants and the elite sort of mixing, you had bars now we think of it as speakeasies which operated almost openly in many of these places, places like new york and chicago where the prohibition law was pretty much a dead letter. One example of this was a place called the 300 club in manhattan which was run by this woman, texas guinan her name was, who was a former silent movie star. Her club was one of the more famous clubs in america. Everyone who read newspapers in the 1920s would have heard of texas guinans club. It was famous for being able to sell liquor at very high prices, it was famous for having a troupe of scantily clad fan dancers and she was a hip, charming charismatic woman, too. And people wanted to drink at her club. There are many clubs they could drink at but her club was one of the more popular ones. She was arrested several times for serving alcohol and providing entertainment against city laws. She always claimed and successfully so that her patrons had brought the liquor in with them, she hadnt sold it to them, and bringing liquor in with you was not illegal. And it was pretty hard to prove that they had actually bought it there. There were no receipts. The club was pretty small. It had an elite clientele. She said, well the girls werent really touching the customers on purpose. It was just so small them had to dance close to the customers because otherwise there was no space. She claimed to the end of her life she never sold an alcoholic drink in her life. Her club was the hangout for some of the citys wealthy elite and also for many of the most important entertainment celebrities in the country. The great composer George Gershin used to go there a lot and play his piano there impromptu, some of the guests were the biggest film stars friends of guinans from her film days, people like gloria swanson, Rudolph Valentino and al jolson, wealthy guests with names like vanderbilt and chrysler who used to come to the club and she made a very good living one way or another whether legally or illegally. When she died, it turned out she had earned 700,000 in one year in 1926. And lesser amounts in other years. Even though her clubs were routinely raided by the police. Her famous greeting to people who came to the club was hello, suckers. But she was obviously no sucker. Now this kind of behavior repelled a good Many Americans, those who supported prohibition and thought it should be enforced strictly. The most popular prohibitionists in the 1920s was not a Government Official or certainly not a Treasury Department agent trying to enforce the law, it was the most popular protestant evangelist in the country, in the United States until billy graham later in the 1950s. Billy graham is still alive today but no longer preaching a lot. Name of this evangelist was billy sunday. That was his real name, by the way. Heres billy sunday, a very aggressive fit guy. Whoops. Got ahead of myself here. Billy sunday was a former Major League Baseball player for the pittsburgh pirates, not very gad but at least he was good enough to play Major League Baseball for a while. He will lectured on many different issues. He was a fundamentalist. He believed all the bible was written by people who understood the will of god if not by god himself but his leading cause in the 1920s was prohibition. And he took direct aim at people like guinan and her crowd. He called them the diamond wearing bunch, the big automobile gang, the silk gowned. He condemned the low down whiskey soaked beer guzzling bull necked foul mouth hypocrite who beat his wife and neglected his work. Sunday was a very physical of evangelist. He would bound around the stage, he would get down on his knees. He would jump up, like mick jagger or something except, of course, he would have hated mick jaggers style of life. Nevertheless, this was an entertaining evangelist but he was very much in ernest when he talked about prohibition or any subject he lectured on. His most famous talk was what he called the booze sherman. This is where he urged people before prohibition became law and very much after it became law to get rid of liquor in their lives. He compared liquor to a rattlesnake and a voracious mongoose. He described in very graphic detail what alcohol does to the flesh, to the face and the liver. And most of all, he challenged men in his audience and most of his audience was male, to do what he said was their moral duty. You have a chance to show your manhood, he said, by abolishing the curse of your wife and the poor innocent children that climb up on your lap and put their arms around your neck. Tens of thousands heard his sermon and swore an oath to vote for and then enforce prohibition. With a supporter like sunday and there were smaller sundays all over the country and a very powerful lobby behind them too, there was a group called the Antisaloon League which had begun in the 1890s but really comes into its own in the 1920s where ministers all over the country, mostly from evangelical, methodists especially are encouraging their parishioners to make sure that they not just dont purchase liquor or drink liquor themselves but that they put the onus on anybody they know who is breaking the law. So this was a Big Government program with a lot of people supporting it behind it, but and yet, a lot at the same time, a lot of people who believed that this was ridiculous, that people could drink without destroying their lives, without beating their wives and, of course, not surprisingly, the rhetoric of the Antisaloon League, the rhetoric of billy sunday was very much antiimmigrant, sometimes also anticatholic. So catholics, immigrants in general took it almost as their duty to disobey the law and certainly to lobby against it. And throughout the 20s, there was a big attempt to actually repeal the prohibition amendment which actually did happen in 1933. But even during this time, texas guinans club was just one sign of the weakness of prohibition in the big cities. In San Francisco, for example, there were just nine to enforce the volstead act, nine agents in a city of about 300,000 people. The mayor of San Francisco, a man named sunny jim rolf actually was seen drinking at speakeasies. This is the republican mayor of one of the major cities in the country. So far you can see what a dead letter the volstead act was in the cities. So the law proved difficult to enforce. But the enforcement of it was left more and more to citizens themselves. And a new social movement sprang up in part to help enforce it. And also to preserve the supremacy of white protestant native born citizens which of course, was always one of the aims. If implicitly of most prohibitionists. And this new social movement was one that took the name of an older social movement, the ku klux klan. The klan was revived in 1915 by an entrepreneur from the south named William Simmons who got people to sign up for the klan and then took a proportion of their membership fees. He made a lot of money doing it. And one of the reasons he was able to revive the clan using this term was even though the klan from the reconstruction years had been suppressed by the u. S. Army, its memory had lived on in Popular Culture in the south and elsewhere, as well, but as ive mentioned before, it came back in a big way when this film was released in 1915. Birth of a nation. This is the actual poster of what was at the time the most popular film in america. 100 years ago, a little less than 100 years ago. On the strength of this heroic portrait of the klan defending the morality of white women especially in the south, several million members were signed is up by the klan. But more and more, by the 1920s, journalists, social scientists noticed that the klan was growing much more in the north than it was in the south, its headquarters in atlanta in the south where it been formed in the early 1870s, but more and more people there were very few africanamericans would join the klan, places like indiana and oregon, rural michigan, Orange County in southern california. There, the main impetus for joining the klan was people who wanted to push back against catholic immigrants, push back against jewish immigrants, defend what they saw as an assault on the Public Schools by parochial schools. Public schools at the time in america in heavily protestant areas especially tended to really be in many ways protestant schools. The king james bible, the protestant bible was taught openly in these schools, the history of the world was taught as a story of protestant supremacy in the world and protestants as a more moral group than catholics, jews or other religions. And so the klan was very much supportive of Public Schools. Wanted no funding for Catholic Schools of any kind, for example. The klan by the mid1920s at its height, the second klan as its known had as many as 5 million members. And it had as many women members as it did male members. Of course, the women had the better tailored uniforms probably. And again, even though we think of the klan today as a very reactionary organization, which in terms of civil rights of course, and ethnic pluralism it certainly was, religious pluralism certainly was, but if you think about it as some ways a continuation of some of the progressive impulses from the early 20th century just a few years before the 20s, there was some continuity. For example, the klan generally was in favor of women suffrage and the klan was in favor of Public Schools and Public Schools getting more funding. It wasnt necessarily against a cut in income taxes. Because it wanted to make sure that the government could have enough money to enforce the prohibition law. And its key issue was enforcing the prohibition law. You have to remember this was the law. So the klan we think of as a lawless, vigilante violent organization was violent in many ways, but it was violent in the cause of enforcing the law. And, of course, thats how clansmen and clans women saw it. One proklan organization excuse me, magazine in indiana put it this way. It the writing of the 18th amendment was the crystallization of nationwide christian sentiment. The enemy liquor gang, angry, vindictive unpatriotic is seeking the overthrow of the highest authority in the land. They can count on the hoodlums, the crooks, the advice joints, the whiskey loving aliens and the indifferent citizen to help them win. Can they count on you . Heres was a larger purpose of the klan as stated by hiram evans who is who was the grand wizard of the klan through the mid1920s. And you can see the racial exclusivity of the klan in this quotation but you can also i think see what you might call a populist edge to the klan. The klan grew large. It was enlisting people mostly in the working class and lower middle class of white protestant society. It wasnt getting richer people, and it wasnt getting the poorest white people either. It was getting people who were, as it says, farmers, artisans, people who really felt that they had gained something but not very much in American Society and those gains where is under attack by these new groups coming into the country. Native white protestant supremacy. Traditional moral standards went by the boards and so forth. This was a restorationist organization. And it was easily the largest social movement in america in the mid1920s. Well, it didnt have a long life in the limelight. There were scandals, the leader of the klan in indiana where the klan basically controlled the government for several years was found raping and other ways abusing women. Hiram stephenson. He was thrown into jail. As leader of the klan in indiana, the whole klan was thrown into disrepute by this and people started to leave it and also more and more newspapers, even states where the klan was strong, more politicians began to denounce the klan. It seemed to be going too far especially as prohibition seemed to be more and more unpopular, the idea of this bully organization, vigilant at organization enforcing the law which was more and more popular also became unpopular. So the second klan continues until world war ii, but its numbers decrease. An organization that had 4 million members in the 1920s only has about 30,000 members. A third klan was reorganized in the 1950s to battle the civil rights movement, but thats a later story. In the klan was right about one thing, however. Some hoodlums were making a fine living defying the volstead act. The most famous of them a name still wellknown today, if you ever watch the hbo show boardwalk empire, anybody watch that show . You see hes one of the stars, actor playing him is one of the stars of that show and this, of course, is al capone. This is actually after he was arrested. So he looked better before these days. Al capone and you know the gangsters in general whose Main Business was to supply illegal alcohol became important cultural figures in the 1920s. They were hated and feared by a lot of the americans. They were very violent, of course. Gangs they organized fought with other gangs. Organized by other gangsters and blood ran in the streets of chicago, detroit, new york, philadelphia, pittsburgh, other major cities across the east and the midwest. But at the same time, people like capone also secretly were admired by some people and thats important to realize i think. You wouldnt have had movies starring james cagney and Humphrey Bogart playing gangsters as rather tough but romantic figures if there wasnt certain admiration americans had for them. James cagney would not have become a good actor and a Good Box Office actor if the gangsters he played were seen as totally reprehensible. Talk about al capone as the most famous example gangsters from the 20s. First of all, to give you some idea why he was admired by many people, at least he was a symbol. First of all, he was a selfmade man. Americans like selfmade men, right . We respect them. We admire them. Now selfmade women. He rose from obscurity, poverty, to tremendous wealth. Tremendous power and, of course, tremendous fame. Capone was born in an immigrant slum in brooklyn. He then moved to italian immigrant parents. He dropped out of school to help his family, went to work, not illegally at first. In the early 20s, he moved to chicago and rose through ranks of the mob fairly quickly because of his courage, his intelligence, and his skill. And also his willingness to kill anybody who stood in his way. He organized the rackets in chicago and he made them efficient. He was involved not just in alcohol but also in gambling, in prostitution and also in extortion for businessmen who didnt follow his orders. By 1925, when is he was only 26 years old, he headed a business that generated 60 Million Dollars annually, which is equivalent to, oh, about 400 million, 500 million today. His payroll included no less than 1,000 gunmen who killed at least 250 competitors of his in chicago. Including such colorful characteristics like obannon, hymie weiss and bugs moran, irish and jewish competitors and he was a complicated fellow. He was a family man, several children, faithful to his wife, at least that was what most people heard and believed. He hosted annual block parties where he lived in chicago. He was a consummate consumer. He wore 11 carat diamond rings. He liked to buy and consume rich wine and excellent food, not just excellent italian food, excellent french food, as well, and is also seemed like a good man who gave back to the community as we would say now. He was a philanthropist during the beginning of the Great Depression when he was still out of jail in 1930, 1931 when prohibition was still the law, he was making lots of money, he gave millions of dollars to soup kitchens in chicago. Here are some of the men eating, unemployed men who are eating on his dime or his quarter. And also, he became obviously a celebrity. Heres al capone with one of his sons. I think its the Chicago White sox, the south side of Chicago Baseball Team as some of you probably know. President obamas favorite team. Signing an autograph for al capone. My baseball knowledge is not good enough to know who this player is. Anybody know who that player is . Ill have to identify him later on. And this scores the fact that the Chicago Tribune took a photo of this and it was on the sports page right at the top of the sports page in the mid1920, shows that al capone was, you know, not a good citizen exactly, but nevertheless, a celebrated one, and he made he put chicago on the map in more ways than one. Now, of course, this couldnt last. 1929 when capone was on a trip to miami, his men executed thats the right word for it, a massacre of nine men from a rival gang in a garage on st. Valentines day. The famous st. Valentines day massacre. Theres a lot of shootings, drive by shootings, shootings in private. But this was, in a major garage in a major part of chicago, this was something that the government could not ignore and it was clear that capones men had done it. So public outrage at this forced the federal government finally to act against capone. They had to find some way of getting him. He was too smart to be found actually violating the volstead act. What they did was they got him on tax evasion. He hadnt really filled out his income tax accurately, because obviously he was hiding a lot of the money he made from alcohol. So he was convicted of tax evasion in 1931. And sent to alcatraz prison in San Francisco bay which was then a new prison, stateoftheart prison. He contacted syphilis. So he wasnt quite as faithful to his wife as people thought and he died of syphilis in 1947 still in jail in alcatraz. Now another indication of the new urban culture which Many Americans admired but many other americans abhorred appeared on screen. 1920s movies, as i said before, became the most popular form of entertainment in america. Even more popular when you started to have talking films in 1927. Al jolson i mentioned before is one of the patrons at texas guinans club was the star of the first full length motion talking picture called the jazz singer. And hollywood already even before you had sound movies was already a synonym as it is today for beautiful, talented people making lots of money living in thoroughly immoral ways. Charlie chaplin the biggest film star of the 1920s was wellknown for having a series after teenage mistresses. When he finally got married, he married a woman 40 years younger than him. The second most popular comedian in the 20s on screen was a guy named fatty arbuckle accused of raping and killing a young actress at a party he gave at his house. Arbuckle was acquitted in several trials but his career was ruined by these accusations. As i mentioned before, gangsters were sometimes glorified in films. And one of the things which made those who were unhappy with this new cultural kind of production particularly unhappy was there were a lot of sexual innuendo almost explicitly in these films. 1920s films were more sexually explicit than anything you would see until the 1970s. Ill talk about why that happened. One example of this was one of the most popular film stars of the 20s. A woman named theda power who herself was actually from jewish immigrant parents. Her maiden name was theda goodman. She was from cincinnati. She was one of the what they called the vamps short for vampire. That is women who appeared sort of cool, sensual, willing to have sex with men as long as they could control those men and ruin them, in fact. She made lots of films, some onereelers, some feature films in which the same basic plot rolled out. A good moral man is just brought to destruction because he just cant resist her. They didnt show sex on screen, but it was pretty clear why he was being ruined. But she was never ruined. She continued as vampires do to live on and on and on. Another example was this guy. Rudolph valentino. An italian boy from italian immigrant parents who made many films but his most popular films were where he played a character known as the sheik, a supposedly arab chieftain who lures blonde european and american women to his tent and then seduces them and they of course, cant get enough of him like this woman here clinging to him where hes just about to push her off for somebody else. These films were very, very th. These films were very, very popular. Valenitno himself, hard to think of any film star today who has this kind of aeel. When he died in the late 1920s, very early, prematurely thousands of women came to his funeral, tried to take pieces of the coffin, had a very hard time move through the streets of los angeles because it was such a sad day for so many people who loved him. In fact, his popularity was symbolized in many ways the most popular brand of prophylactic sold in america in the 20s after that was called the sheik. They decided that figures leak this, people like valentino who at least nomally is a catholic, they were being imitated and being seen by catholic boys and girls in the cities who were making them into heroes, and this couldnt do. So the archbishops, the bishops of america decided we have to do something about this. So they wept to hollywood and said, look, were not against movies themselves merchandise theyre here to stay. But wed like you to adopt a certain morality, whats called the production code which would make sure that a couple was never shown in bed together, make sure this kind of shot would not be shown again onscreen. Make sure all you see between a man and a woman was a kiss, nothing more. And that as much as possible gangster films would end with the gangster being killed in a bloody fashion, being discredited and being made very clear he was no model for young people. Production code in 1930 was actually drafted by a priest and catholic layman. The Production Office was run by hayes who was a catholic himself. It took a while for it to be enforced. It wasnt enforced until actually 1934. For a while warner bros. Continued to make films with titles like the naughty flirt, misbehaving and hot heiress. Most catholics were voting democratic so the Catholic Church had more 30uer to influence. You did not see a man and woman in bed together. The gangster films showed him basically giving up either being blown up, someone youd not want to follow but basically telling young people with angels with dirty faces, for example, one of his greatest gangster films saying they should not do what he had done. A lot of great films, golden age in hollywood in a lot of ways, but in terms of showing sexual content a much more oppressive age than our age today. And finally a major battleground in the 20s was religion. One can never underestimate the importance, significance of religion in American History. America, of course, was founded in new england, american colonies by the puritans. It was founded in the southwest earlier partly by catholic missionaries, spanish missionaries going together with the armed men defending the missions and looking for gold. America has always been one of the most church going countries in the world. And this was true of the 20s as it had been earlier. Again there was a battle over religion in the 20s. On the one hand organized religion was doing just fine. A majority of americans more prosperous along with churches, they could pay, give some money when the collection plate came around. Most churches had ambitious building programs because they could afford to. And most of the churches, the protestant churches were ones the official held was that the bible was the word of god, no question about it. On the surface where everything seemed fine, traditional, everything seem today be going along as it had been attendance in the church was actually down. New churches were often half empty on sundays and skepticism about the truth claims of the bible were growing, more than they ever had before. The 1920s, in other words, was a time of tremendous religious skepticism, tremendous religious conflict as was true for prohibition. One of the reasons for this well first of all prohibition itself. Prohibition had been since the beginning of the Prohibition Movement in any cirrus way in the late 19s century with the Antisaloon League prohibition was the evangelical protestant issue, methodists, presbyterians. The largest protestant congregations in much of the country were all very much and as i mentioned before it was very difficult to enforce where it wasnt popular. Thats one reason. Second, women were more independent. And women had been the mainstay of the churches. The period of socalled new women, the women who were able to could go into work more easily if they were married. They would bob the hair, wear alluring clothing, go to movies like this one and they could find other things to do with their time as well. Also the prosperity of the 20s, the consumer prosperity brought with it other kinds of associations and things you could do with your life besides being a faithful churchgoer. College football became more popular in the 20s than ever before. Professional baseball had larger crowds in the 20s. People had aid yos now and they could stay home and list toon a sermon if they wanted to. There were car clubs, movie fan clubs like the fan clubs that got behind and were so enthusiastic about. And finally there was a growing acceptance of darwinian theory. Among those with a High School Education which is still a minority of americans more and more there was a sense that genesis might not be the whole truth about the way the world was formed. And if genesis wasnt true maybe other parts of the bible might be thrown into a bit of doubt as well. So the 20s is a time im not surprised where you see both the rise of fundamentalism in american churches and on the other hand a rise in more relativistic, modernistic, where science oriented ways to understand how the world was formed. And science in general becomes more and more legitimate as a source of ultimate truth in the 20s than before. The lead journalist walter litman was one of the most famous columnists, most widely read columnists in america. Quote, this is the first age i think in the history of man kind where the circumstances of life have conspired and intellectual habits of the time to render any fixed and authoritative belief incredible to large mass of men. Any fixed or authoritative belief incredible to large masses of men. In other words, relativism in knowledge is okay. Relativism in knowledge is fundamental to use that term element of what it means to be modern, that you can have different points of view and still be part of the same society. Icize citizens can disagree about politics without coming to blows. Politics, yes, that was always true before. Race was a fairly new idea, you could have a Multiracial Society and everyone could be equal, but religion was very threatening, maybe the idea the bible wasnt true after all. And many protestants agreed with litman himself. Many protestants believed one could accept darwin and jesus. One could have two separate spheres, science and church. They didnt have to contradict one another. But fundamentests believed this was one big step towards atheism. And they said darwinism is a science. Darwinism equals the rule of the fittest, the rules of those already at the top. Its a brutal dogeatdog world and we dont want the chirp to learn this kind of thing. Some fundamentests argue that those who wanted to breed a better race of human beings were evolutionists. And you would do things to make sure people who werent very bright couldnt have children, you would force them to get sterilized and try to get them support ironically from immigrants who say you really want these high born elite scientists to tell your kids what to believe about the bible . This battle between more liberal, relivistic Attitudes Towards Science and what should be cherished and hold dear to the hearts of all americans occurred during the famous monkey trial of 1925 in the little town of dayton, tennessee. This is a photo i took about 5 years ago when i went down to dayton. It was called the trial of the century even though the century was only 25 years old at the time. Its funny to call it the trial of the century because it lacked any real drama. The law was passed in early 1925 that said that Public Schools in tennessee could not teach any class which basically denied that god had created man in his own image. Thats what the law said, and it was pretty clear if anybody did that they were breaking the law. The man who was the defendant in the trial this guy named john t. Scopes, a Science Teacher in tennessee, had broken the law unwittingly. He was actually substituting for the regular biology teacher. He in fact was hired primarily to be the football coach at dayton high school, but he was willing to be the defendant in this trial partly because he wanted to help his new town of dayton, tennessee. He was from kentucky, actually. The town was in decline economically. It had been a mining town. The mines were played out, and so the town needed something to build out its coffers. Everyone knew after this bill was passed that some town in tennessee was going to be the location for a big test case of the law. So some of the city fathers of dayton looked around for somebody who had broken the law, in effect and they found john scopes who liked to hang out at the drugstore in downtown dayton and they knew he had taught biology on several occasions, and he wasnt from the town originally himself, so they thought he wont get in that much trouble and he can leave if he gets convicted. So the scopes trial despite all the drama that surrounded it and the importance in the culture clash in the 1920s, despite how many people know about it today, it was located in the town it was loced in to save the local economy which for a short time it did because lots of people came to dayton to witness the trial. As i said the trial didnt have much drama in it at least at first. Both sides in the trial, both the prosecution and the defense basically agreed that the defendant was guilty as charged. And scopes didnt really suffer at all from being convicted, which he was he would get drinks bought, dinner bought. He became a Petroleum Engineer and got jobs all around the world. He had a pretty good life. But the trial nevertheless was a dramatic one. It drew over a hundred reporters. It was one of the first trials to be broadcast on a National Radio hookup. And it became a touchstone for debate that continues to wage today in america. The two principle lawyers in the trial were very famous who defended very left wing figures and Williams James brian who ran for president three different times for the Democratic Party and still seen as a progressive democrat and hero to many rural small town protestant americans. Brian stated the stakes of the trial this way. He said at the end of the trial which took 8 days. But the world is interested because it raises an issue. That issue will someday be settled right, whether it is settled on our side or on the other side. And here is the issue. It wasnt just whether one could reconcile whether a teacher in a Public School was free to teach the truth or whether the people had to right to control the Education System which they created and which they tax themselves to support which was bryans understanding of it. He said if you want to teach evolution in new york city thats fine with me, but dont teach it in tennessee because a majority of people here dont want it taught here. The guy on the left, the great radical lawyer agreed to head the defense for scopes only after he learned that bryan was going to be on the Prosecution Team on the other side. But now 30 years later darrow reviled bryan as a foe of lint intellectual liberty, as a symbol of what he said was the American Civil Liberties union which they saw as a defense of free speech. They said we dont care about science and darrow even though he was agnostic and what some would call an atheist, he did not want to attack religion. That was not his aim. What he wanted to do was basically say the question of religion was not the primary question here. The question was whether people could teach science as its understood. So in using the bible to stop the teaching of biology the legislator according to darrow had violated the first amendment. Well, the first six days of the trial were taken up with long testimony from scientists who were describing the theory of evolution to the people in the courtroom and people in the country who probably didnt know much about it. The judge who was a bryan democrat listen to it, he clearly was unhappy with the testimony, wasnt sure it was germane to the case whether or not the law had been broken by this particular Science Teacher. The six days were, you know, long. Darrow thought he was doing well. Bryan had little to say during the six days. There were other prosecution lawyers who questioned the scientists. The other six days of testimony the judge ruled none of his testimony was germane. It was part of the trial transcript so tell the jury disregard all youve heard in the previous six days. This left both the principle lawyers frustrated. Darrow was also frustrated. Bryan was also frustrated. He hadnt joined the prosecution to preserve a single law in a single state. He wanted to talk about the word of god. He wanted to defend the bible, and there was no way to do that in the parameters of the and there was a lot of people crowd in the courtroom. As you can see the courtroom was fairly big but fitting about 300, 400 people there. And reporters, regular citizens, people on the outside who wanted to see this famous trial. So the judge decided he would move the proceedings outdoors. It was july in tennessee. Its not as hot as a memphis in july but still pretty hot. Middle of july without airconditioning. People had these fans given to them by a local funeral parlor which they were waving up and down as quickly as they could in front of their faces. But nevertheless it was hot. So afraid the floor of the courtroom would collapse, afraid people were almost suffocating because it was so hot the judge on the seventh day moved the case outside. Heres a photo. Soon after the court reconvened in the open air one of the Defense Attorneys shocked and delighted a throng of 3,000 people watching with a single sentence. He said the defense desires to call mr. Bryan as a witness. Thats pretty unusual to ask a prosecutor to take the stand to defend in effect his point of view, but briyan as you know wa a famous speaker accepted the challenge he said ill accept being examined by the defense if after thats finished you allow me to cross examine them as well, and not just darro but all on the defense. There were three altogether. Now the trial could finally become the contest of faith and darrow as the most experienced and famous Trial Attorney on the defense team was going to conduct crossexamination, and heres a photo. You see darrow in the center there, and on the left bryan sitting in a chair ready to be cross examined. The Court Stenographer is to the left of darrow sitting down in the short sleeves. And this is how the crossexamination began. You have given considerable thought to the bible, havent you. Yes, sir, ive tried to. For the next two hours he had a cascade of questions. Do you believe a whale followed jonah, do you believe joshua made the sun standstill . Do you take the story of the flood to be a literal transportation. He didnt say yes to any of darrows questions. The whale he said maybe it was just a large fish, and maybe god had not specifically directed that large fish to ingest the man. Neither did bryan speculate how the lord bend the laws of physics to stop the rotation of the earth. Because clearly if you make the sun standstill the earth has some problem in its rotation as well. And bryan rejected the notion that the day of creation mentioned in genesis was actually 24 hours. Bryan subscribed to what some fundamentests at the time called ageday theory where the days mentioned in genesis actually refer to an eon of time, thousands and thousands of years for each day. And bryan evaded direct questions with answers that seemed rather thoughtless and dogmatic. For example when bryan asked when the flood took place darrow said he never made a calculation. The Court Reporter noted laughter in the courtyard. After several minutes of this the prosecutors fraptically asked the judge to stop the crossexamination. Darrow he claimed was straying too far from the and bryan wanted to continue, but clearly on the seventh day of the trial he should have rested. The day ended with a merciless exchange between the two lawyers they leave, go to sleep and the next morning the judge comes in and orders bryans testimony expunged from the official record, says it wasnt germane to the trial. So the actual transcript is very long. The actual record is not very long. He made sure priian would not be allowed to cross examine the other lawyers. First order of business after the judge ordered bryans testimony taken out of the court record darrow asked the judge to instruct the jury to bring in a guilty verdict. He says were pleading guilty the jury goes out for a few minutes, comes back and says hes guilty have to pay 100 fine. That was the only penalty. Later on this crossexamination becomes famously infamous depending on your point of view in a very popular film in the 1960s. And the two figures were played by and the film made no doubt which side you should agree with. H. L. Mencken actually paid the 100 fine scopes owned. And he and other modernists in the cities who ran the major newspapers in the country made sure that for most americans even though legally the scopes trial was a victory for the prosecution, made sure it was not a victory in the culture wars of the 20s. A few other states passed antievolution laws. Most americans continue to believe in the biblical account of creation. In fact, according to polls most Americans Still do. But they increasingly rejected the idea religious truths were more legitimate and to overshadow scientific ones biology classes in most of the country are not sensored. And fundamentests radio stations. And menckens view about bryan convinced Many Americans any american who supported teaching evolution in Public Schools who was opposed to scientific truths was an idiot as bryan was an idiot. He died a week five days at the end of the scopes trial of diabetic shock. Quote, he seemed like only a poor clout like those around him filled with almost pathological hatred of all learning, all beauty, all fine and noble things. Bryan was a peasant to the barnyard. He locked like a dog with rabies in the dayton courtyard. Finally, bryan liked people who this is an obituary of one of the most popular politicians in america at his time. Film and of course prohibition itself was of course repealed in 1943. It continues to nurture a sense restoring traditional American Values is a good thing. If you hear echoes of that in political debate last year in the president ial cam pape and even today it shouldnt be a surprise. I want to end with a little piece of popular entertainment by one of those fundamentests, a very gifted musician from the 1920s, a song called the bibles truth. You get the idea. Have a great vacation. Weeknights this month were featuring American History tv programs as a preview whats available every weekend on cspan 3. Tonight a professor explores public opinion, the rise of radio and the debate over entering world war 2. He outlines arguments and uses radio clips. Watch tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern. American history tv this week and every weekend on cspan 3. American history tv on cspan 3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. Coming up this Labor Day Weekend, saturday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on the civil war historians discuss how we remember the civil war and whether to remove or contextualize confederate monuments. And sunday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on american artifacts well preview photographs of nativeamericans from the Smithsonian National museum which includes more than a half million images. At 8 00 p. M. On the presidency, a look at presidency retreats including abraham lincolns summer cottage and stories of the kennedys, quintens and obamas in martha vineyard. And monday night august marked the 75th anniversary of the bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki. A look back. Exploring the american story. Watch American History tv this Labor Day Weekend on cspan 3. Up next on lectures in history a professor teaches a class on the abundance of the 1920s and how unequal distribution of wealth led to the Great Depression. She argues low wages hindered American Consumers from keeping up with the high levels of productivity. Her class is about 75 minutes. Weve spent the last few weeks considering how americans adapted to abundance between the 1890s and 1920s. Despite the efforts of producers, of advertisers, of retailers and of others the supply of goods continue to outstrip the men. This wasnt because everyone, all 106 americans had everything they needed. It was because they didnt have adequate purchasing power. They didnt have adequate wages or i