Viewing audience is history. 134 spies, assassins, martyrs, witches, famous trials in american. This is jenna. Big questions course. And we have a room full of largely non history majors from the sciences and business and other places who are taking a history course and the we are covering today is a trial that will be dubbed in the 20th century. The trial of the century the scopes trial and want to start our discussion by introducing you to this man. This is John Washington butler and he was a tennessee tobacco farmer who gets to the state legislature 1922. And as he it he was home at his Baptist Church and his preacher told story that he found very disturbing and it was the story of a local young woman who attended the university of tennessee and then was exposed to darwins teachings on evolution in a biology course. And she had been raised in a culture of faith and belief in the bible and, the preacher said she came home from college, an atheist and butler had three young boys who were growing up, and he knew that evolution was also included in the curriculum of the local schools and did not want to see the same thing happen to his children. So he authored a bill that will pass the Tennessee Legislature that will be known as the butler act and it will be an act that prohibited the of evolution in any schools that receive state funding under the argument, parents should have a say as to whats taught in the schools theyre writing the checks they should have a say. And darwins teachings certainly seem to to contradict the story of the creation of, the universe and the earth in the book genesis the adam and eve story and darwin telling a very different tale of the origins of man. And the tennessee dont this down, just get the idea here. Its not going to say that you had to teach the book of genesis in school all it said is this that it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the universities, normals, dorms, our to taught teachers how to teach and all other Public Schools of the state which are supported in whole or part by the school funds of the state to teach any theory that denies the story of divine creation of as taught in the bible and to teach instead that has descended from a lower order of animals so you could teach evolution about other species but just not anything conflicted with the book of genesis. You have to teach the book of genesis. You just had to teach anything that conflicted with it, which would be darwins theories on the origins of man the butler act. And its going to pass. Theres going to be some opposition when its the tennessee senate, theres some vanderbilt up in the rafters, heckling, but nevertheless its going to pass a lot of enthusiasm and be signed into law by governor austin peay. Now its going to be tricky because the state men dated biology textbook hunters, civic biology, he did include significant discussions of darwins theories of evolution, chapter 14 and particular so the state science teachers now will have to carefully use the schools textbook so as not to run afoul of the law. And law, which was part of kind of a growing anti evolution movement in a number of portions of the country caught the eye of an organized founded in 1920 called the american civil union. Many of you have heard of them before. Theyre still around. And the aclu you was an organization formed around world war one during what is known to historians as the red scare when lots of people with beliefs sympathetic to socialism and communism are were arrested for the things that they were saying and and the aclu created by folks on the american left to defend the First Amendment rights of those people. But it had started to kind of broaden its position and as many of you know, the aclu over the course of the 20th century will become First Amendment defendants of a lot of different types of speech. Theyre going to defend the rights of nazis to speak and klansman to speak in the westboro Baptist Church, speak under the idea that thats what free speech all about. The best place to to expel is to ideas, to the marketplace of ideas and then let bad ideas be defeated. And the aclu saw this law as an infringement of free speech and now will start to put articles into papers in tennessee saying we need a teacher who wants to challenge this law. And in the Chattanooga Times in 1925, dont copy this down. Ill show this article ran and it says a legal test of the tennessee prohibiting the teaching of evolution in schools and colleges is being sought by the American Civil Liberties union. And then down here we are looking for a tennessee who is willing to accept our services and testing this law in our courts, in the courts our lawyers think a friendly test case can be arranged without costing the teacher his her job. Now lets move our focus to a small town population 2200 between knoxville and chattanooga known as dayton, which is going to become quite famous for the events here that unfold. And. Were going to move to the local drugstore in town a drugstore owned by Frank Robinson, a member of the rag county board, where also sold hunter civic biology for students to buy for use in school and where there regularly was meetings over coffee and conversation of some of the towns leaders the local city attorney. Some of the managers of the local coal mine and Frank Robinson himself a and they were discussing law and some of them thought it was a silly or wrong law it including a man named george rapley, who was a new yorker who had a ph. D. In chemical and was a manager at the local coal mine, which had been struggling a bit. He was a modernist methodist. And well discuss shortly what that means to be a modernist. But he the law was silly, but he was also someone who wanted to get some publicity for dayton. A lot of people didnt know dating and they wanted to do something that would put dayton, as he put it, on the map map. Theres the drugstore. And as he said to Frank Robinson, were always looking for something that will get a little publicity. Have you seen the morning paper and convinces his fellow guys down there to try that maybe this is the place where we do the test case against this law, maybe can recruit one of our local schoolteachers to be the one, to challenge this law. And he gets the other folks say, all right, maybe lets do this. And hes going to contact the aclu and say do you mean what you say . Will you provide lawyers . They say absolutely. There they are again. And theyre convinced that this is not only going to bring publicity to dayton, that its going to bring crowds that people will want to see this trial. It will be good for business. And going to speak some of the schoolteachers and theyre going find one they think is perfect. He doesnt have a lot of ties to the community. He doesnt a family. So if he somehow lost job over this, which theyre hoping he wouldnt wouldnt, he wouldnt you know, he didnt hed be okay. And he was the 24 year old general science instructor and the football coach who accepted the theory of evolution. But he was no expert. He had taught three weeks as the substitute whos in the biology class that spring, and he had taught out of hundreds civic biology. And he will say, yes, i probably taught evolution, although he couldnt remember exactly. But he agrees to participate to be the case to challenge this law. And scopes was the son of agnostics agnostics as many you know, are people who do say there is no god. But they also say, i know if there is all we can tell about the world is what we see in the material phenomenon on earth. So im not going to rule it out, but im not. And scopes he also claimed to be an agnostic although he attended davids Methodist Church largely for social reasons in a small town, it was a good place to meet people and feel to be part a community, but hes now going to attach his name to a famous case challenging the butler act. Now this class watched as an introduction. This the fictionalized account of these events inherit the wind, where they this dramatic story of scopes being in front of the classroom. Thats whats happening here. This is a creative test case there he is. And amongst the folks at, Frank Robinsons drugstore was the local city attorney, sue hicks, and he agrees to be part of it. He agrees to prosecute scopes. He has admitted to having taught evolution in violation of the butler act out of civic biology and. He goes down to a local justice of the peace and has them swear out a for scopes arrest and scopes is arrested. The editor the baltimore sun, a supporter of the teaching of evolution is going to be intertwined with the aclu on and hell pay scopes his bail and scopes goes off to play tennis. In the movie version, hes sitting bars. Thats not true. Goes off to play tennis now. I love these guys. And Fred Robinson said Frank Robinsons drugstore. And ill tell why this class for our cspan viewers is a class that on trials that were well known at the time sensational at the time and still have a hold on the american imagination today, but that have no precedential value. I teach a course in constitutional history where we do landmark cases. Marbury, madison and brown re board, etc. But scopes is a trial thats not going to set a lot of precedent. But still, Everybody Knows and everybody at the time people in europe knew the scopes trial and those guys at the drugstore knew they were at a moment. They knew this case over the teaching of evolution and would bring people to town would be a sensation and. Theyre right. Its kind of the heart of this course. Did they know . And part of what they knew was the cultural context of the 1920s. Now when you folks think of the 1920s, what do you think about from high school classes, from any other general knowledge you have the roaring twenties. What do you know . Oh, wait, weve got to get a over here. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah. What do you know . The great gatsby . The great gatsby. The great gatsby. You know, lavish parties of the rich and the kind of a the that those moments. How about over here. Prohibition and a lot of like gangs in new york like al capone thats chicago. But yes prohibition and the idea that although alcohol was banned, people were still drinking and there speakeasies in the cities people are all this stuff is going on which you know today theres all these bars that build themselves in speakeasies because in retrospect seems kind of cool. But you think of the twenties as this moment of wealth and parties and speech eases and jazz and dance crazy and thats all partially true. But there is also a what going on in a deeply divided country in the 1920s, huge cultural rifts and the folks in Frank Robinsons drugstore knew that this trial is going to land right on one of those fault lines lines. Lets talk about those this is what we do with all our trials and use them as a window, a wider world. In 1920, the states census announced that for the first time, more americans lived in cities than rural areas and all of american history. Until that time the country if you needed to win an election, you to get right with the farmers. But as farms became more productive, the mccormick, reaper and other things, we didnt need as many farmers. Farmers are moving into the cities and theres this sense among some people in rural areas that they who were considered kind of the heart of the american story, Thomas Jeffersons chosen children of god were being supply entered by an urban story story and, a place where living in the city seemed like an increasingly sophisticated thing to do. And farmers who once had been seen as the backbone of america are portrayed by some in the cities as kind rubes. And there is a growing urban rural divide divide. And its going to play out in a lot of ways ways. Cities in the late 19th century, people went there because there were jobs, immigrants went there because thats where they landed. But they were tough. The number of people arriving completely, the infrastructure pollution, sewage problems, horse manure everywhere. It was not pretty. But as a result of a movement known, as the progressive movement, at the turn the 19th into the 20th century, cities had been cleaned up. Improvements in housing and sewer and parks and playgrounds and sanitary ocean and changes in the form of government to make them more efficient. And germ being applied to clean up cities. You can see the difference down here on east huston street in new york before and after the progressives and in addition in the 1920s cities were although one in ten farm families in the twenties had electricity in the cities, almost everyone did. And its going to spur demand this is part of whats going to make the twenties economy roar for whole host of new labor saving devices that if were lived in the cities you could use because you had electricity, electric toasters and refrigerator heaters and vacuum cleaners and record players and it just seemed like a very kind of exciting place to live because there was all these things labor saving . You could buy and entertain devices none more than the radio. Today, you think of radios, old technology, but the idea the twenties that you could turn on a box your living room and hear the news from europe and sporting events and live events, one of which will be the first trial in american history, broadcast the radio the scopes trial was intoxicate intoxicate. And the cities increase and we seem sexy times square someone walking into times square exciting the electrify ii ads of times square square. Adding to cultural sophistication will be a move that explodes the 1920s as the result of the first wave of great africanamerican and migration of the south and into northern cities. More than a million africanamericans moved north during and after world one, whereas most 90 of africanamericans had lived in the south in 1900. That now starts to change. And with is going to come some significant racial tension as africanamericans move into neighborhoods that had been white neighborhoods but also a dramatic outpouring of arts and music. When you lived in the sharecropping south down long roads from your nearest neighbors, creative people didnt often find their people who shared their interests. But as africanamerican move into neighborhoods like harlem new street in d. C. , theres this moment of explosion that is going to lead to the poetry of Langston Hughes and the music of Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington and cab calloway and the novels and of zora hurston, which are to kind of change the American Literary and landscape. Known as the harlem renaissance, although it plays out in a lot of cities, detroit and chicago and other places, if youve been down to you street, d. C. , that was kind of the harlem renaissance neighborhood around howard. And look at the look of the plaques on, the houses, and youre going to see heres where Duke Ellington lived, and then youll see it. You street in twenties and part of this will be the rise of jazz born in new but it takes on an even a new different urban sophisticated feel in detroit and chicago and new york. And it will be music that is going to become americas music, particularly intoxicating to young people. Young, White College students love jazz is going to fill the music of the speakeasies and give the name through F Scott Fitzgerald to the whole period as the jazz age. And included in this urban world will be the rise of a new type of woman known as the flapper or and these hip young urban who wore their hair short and short skirts, who danced and who smoked . Who drank despite prohibition and flouted sexual conformity. Many of you have seen the flapper image before. Some of you whose families resided in the United States in the twenties. Back in your old photo albums there be a flapper in your family tree. And the flapper image is everywhere. Smoking flapper. You get the idea idea. Yeah, and crossracial flapper style for africanamericans this is the howard Football Game in the twenties. And while most women not become flappers, advertise in which booms in the twenties. This the great age of madison avenue likes always likes edgy stuff. They know it appeals particularly to younger demographics and the flapper image is everywhere everywhere. And the twenties was the rise of hollywood and movies. And in the great movie of the cities and even in those small towns got theaters because they sought the town, had electricity. Theres a lot of movies that project this urban style and sophisticate fashion include. Clara bow, who often played characters, some which some people found very you recall from our lecture on the Lizzie Borden case, the layers of clothing that counted for respectability in the victorian era, which is just 20 years before this, or even up to 1910, you remember this, and suddenly we have this. In the movie and the small theaters and some parents are going to see and theyre not going to like it. All right. Even the small some small towns get, theaters and part of this cultural contest which the scopes trial is going to sit as you mentioned, was prohibition, which had been passed. Folks like Lizzie Bordens Womens Christian Temperance Union and who believe that stamping out alcohol would end Domestic Violence and poor families squandering their wages and bring order to the city where a lot of these immigrants seem to be spending time in saloons and drinking, but also which, you know, is going to be in the cities. A titanic failure, instantly speaking, sees a rise. Police are off winking and nodding and prohibition never works. Warren hardings throwing liquor parties at the white house and to the shock of some, its going to turn the folks who supplied the alcohol to the speakeasies like al capone and the mafia into cult heroes heroes. And with all this cultural change, inevitably therell be a backlash and a backlash from who got to the crowded, particularly if they had left rural areas, because the being kind of pushed out of farm found them deep