Evolution on Trial | Live and Let Live | American History Tellers | Podcast

What this episode is about

The content details a pivotal moment in 1926 Mississippi when an ACLU lawyer seeks a high school teacher willing to challenge a state law that prohibits the teaching of evolution in public schools. The conversation reveals tensions surrounding academic freedom, the implications of recent legal battles, and the broader cultural clash between science and religion during that era.

Key takeaways

• In 1926 Mississippi, academic freedom was pitted against fear—who knew ignorance could be so popular?
• The Scopes trial's fallout showed evolution being banned more in the Bible Belt than the Northern states—an intellectual border war.
• Finding a teacher to challenge anti-evolution laws was like searching for a needle in a haystack of fundamentalism.
• Anti-evolution sentiment thrived in a decade haunted by fear and backlash—a peculiar twist to the Roaring Twenties narrative.
• The Scopes trial may have been a circus, but it revealed deep cultural rifts that still flare today.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Lindsey Graham (Host) · 15 min speaking
• Brenda Wineapple (Guest) · 23 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), John Scopes, Brenda Wineapple
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Butler Act, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Roger Baldwin, World War One
3. 20:00 – 25:00: Billy Sunday, Amy Simple McPherson, John Scopes
4. 30:00 – 35:00: John Scopes, Butler Act
5. 35:00 – 38:09: Brenda Wineapple

Notable quotes from "Evolution on Trial | Live and Let Live | American History Tellers | Podcast"

• Brenda Wineapple, welcome to American History Tellers.

  about Brenda Wineapple · at 4:14

• And this decade, the 1920s, pretty much began with the red summer of 1919.

  about World War One · at 5:51

• It also centered around a new organization, the American Civil Liberties Union. Tell us a little about Roger Baldwin, one of its co-founders.

  about Roger Baldwin · at 6:53

• And what was the ACLU's goal in challenging the Butler Act?

  about Butler Act · at 7:49

• Billy Sunday was very different from Amy Simple McFersonson. He'd been a pro baseball player, but he became an evangelist. People flocked to hear his fire and brimstone sermons where he.

  about Billy Sunday · at 23:29

• And then after all was said and done what happened to John Scopes?

  about John Scopes · at 34:04

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• John Scopes — Person · Referenced historical figure (defendant/teacher) · 6 mentions · first at 0:53
  Defendant in the Scopes Trial and the focal point of the ACLU’s test-case strategy; discussed as a reluctant public figure whose conviction and later life illustrate the trial’s legal and cultural aftermath.
• Brenda Wineapple — Person · Main guest (historian/author) · 2 mentions · first at 4:14
  Interview guest providing historical interpretation of the Scopes Trial, the ACLU’s strategy, Bryan and Darrow’s motivations, and the trial’s long-term legacy for democracy and civil liberties.
• Roger Baldwin — Person · Referenced historical figure (ACLU co-founder) · 2 mentions · first at 6:58
  Explained as a key early ACLU leader whose pacifism and civil-liberties work shaped the organization’s pursuit of test cases like Scopes to challenge laws restricting constitutional rights.
• Billy Sunday — Person · Referenced historical figure (evangelist) · 4 mentions · first at 22:10
  Presented as another influential fundamentalist showman-preacher who vehemently attacked evolution; helps contextualize the popular religious rhetoric surrounding anti-evolution politics in the 1920s.
• Amy Simple McPherson — Person · Referenced historical figure (evangelist) · 2 mentions · first at 22:10
  Cited as a major 1920s fundamentalist celebrity preacher aligned with Bryan and opposed to evolution; used to illustrate the era’s evangelical ‘star power’ and media-savvy religious campaigning.
  Oporadic. She was not a supremacist. She welcomed everyone into the church, but she was adamantly against evolution. She definitely backed William Jennings Bryan and she had…

Companies & orgs

• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — Company · Business focus · 5 mentions · first at 0:20
  The ACLU is central to the episode's narrative, as it sought to challenge the Butler Act through a test case to protect academic freedom and individual liberties.
  The ACLU at this particular time was looking for what they call test cases.

Concepts & topics

• Butler Act — Concept · Core topic · 5 mentions · first at 6:51
  The Butler Act is the legislation at the heart of the Scopes trial, banning the teaching of evolution in public schools, which the ACLU sought to challenge.
• Ku Klux Klan — Concept · Historical context · 4 mentions
  The Ku Klux Klan is mentioned as a powerful and violent organization during the 1920s, reflecting the era's racial tensions and societal divisions.
• Harlem Renaissance — Concept · Historical context · 1 mention · first at 5:32
  The Harlem Renaissance is noted as a significant cultural movement during the 1920s, highlighting the era's artistic and intellectual vibrancy.
  This is the time of the Harlem Renaissance. There's a lot that's going on. The cities are crowded, and as a result, people think that things are happening much too quickly. I should.

Places & events

• World War One — Event · Historical context · 1 mention · first at 5:44
  World War I is mentioned as part of the historical backdrop that influenced the societal fears and tensions during the 1920s, including the Scopes trial.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:01 Wonder. Imagine it's April 1926 in Oxford, Mississippi. The scent of stale pipe smoke greets you as you sit down in a small wood panled office. You're a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, and you've traveled south in search of a high school teacher willing to participate in a test case to challenge a new Mississippi law that bans the teaching of evolution in public schools. The man you're here to meet, the Lafayette County School Superintendent, sits across from you behind his desk, a beused expression on his face. Well, I I am surprised. I I didn't expect you to come all the way down here in person. Well, I I had to.

0:46 No one would respond to my letters and telegrams. The superintendent shrugs. Well, you'd be hardressed to find a teacher looking to be the new John Scopes. It's only been what, 9 months? Folks hadn't forgotten what happened in Dayton last summer. That was a circus. Well, that might be understandable. But you don't mean to say you support a law that criminalizes the teaching of evolution here in Mississippi, do you? No, of course not. I'm a learned man, same as you. But it's not worth getting worked up about. They'll never enforce it. No, it's not about that. This is about a higher principle. were trying to defend academic freedom and the individual liberties of teachers and students. Is that right, a higher principle? I thought it was about mocking the Bible and every man, woman, and child who believes in the scripture.

1:27 No, that was never our intention. I assure you, the ACLU is dedicated to protecting freedom of religion. And yet, your organization hired that atheist Clarence Darrow. He sure put on a show sneering and scoffing. He made it his mission to humiliate William Jennings Brian. He practically killed the poor fellow. No, I I wouldn't say that. And besides, you lost last year, didn't you? Scopes was convicted. Who's to say Mississippi would be any different? Well, we planned about a new legal strategy, and you needn't worry. Darl won't be involved this time. We really believe this is our chance to win a ruling on the law's constitutionality.

2:02 To stop this movement before it does any more damage. I just need to find another teacher willing to help us. The superintendent shakes his head, running a hand through his slick back here. You want a teacher who's willing to earn the hostility of his neighbors and the scorn of every pulpit in the state? That's a mighty big ask. And you're willing to let this law stand, even though it silences teachers, denies scientific fact. Our teachers and taxpayers are not interested in becoming the laughingtock of northern newspapers. You can travel to every county in the state. They'll tell you the same thing. I believe you're wasting your time.

2:37 With a curtain nod, you stand and walk out of the superintendent's office. You hadn't expected an easy fight in Mississippi, but you did hope to find some sliver of resistance to these anti-evolution laws. Now though, you fear that after last year's events in Dayton, your efforts to protect academic freedom in the South are doomed

3:05 from Wondery. I'm Lindsey Graham and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. In March 1926, the Mississippi State Legislature passed a law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools. Less than a year after the trial of John Scopes in Dayton, Tennessee, the American Civil Liberties Union tried to sponsor another test case to challenge this law in court. But this time, they were unable to find a teacher willing to serve as the defendant. In the aftermath of the Scopes trial, anti-evolution efforts failed in the North, but gathered widespread support in the South, highlighting a growing regional divide and attitudes towards science and religion. Here with me now to discuss the significance of the Scopes trial a 100 years later is Brenda Weineapple, author of the best-selling book, Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Ribbited a Nation.

4:14 Brenda Wineapple, welcome to American History Tellers. Thanks for inviting me. So, the Scopes trial took place in 1925, exactly 100 years ago. Why don't you put us in that era, this time in US history? What were some of the big changes happening at the moment?

4:29 The 1920s are usually thought of as the roaring 20s or the jazz age. And that seems a time of hilarity, good times for everyone. But not everyone was having a very good time. And not only were there assassinations, labor stoppages, economic disparity, not only did women get the vote, was there prohibition, but there was also a fear in the country. Fear of otherness, fear of immigrants, fear of too much unemployment, fear of boleviks, which we would know as communist. There was a massive rise in violence against black people. The Ku Klux Clan was enormously powerful at this particular time. So that's a very complicated time as well as an exciting one. And the reason I say exciting is in 1925 alone, you have the New Yorker founded, The Great Gatsby published.

5:32 This is the time of the Harlem Renaissance. There's a lot that's going on. The cities are crowded, and as a result, people think that things are happening much too quickly. I should also mention that it was the end of a brutal slaughter known as World War I. And this decade, the 1920s, pretty much began with the red summer of 1919. Certainly a fearful time. Explain what that was and how it might have influenced the context of the Scopes trial.

6:02 Well, sure. In 1919 alone, there were bomb scares and actually bombs that were exploded. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, who is famous, comes down to us as the head of the so-called Palmer raids. This was the time of the red scare and people were afraid of reds namely communists and as a result there were numbers of socialists and communists and even pacifists who were rounded up and deported. That's something that's going on in the background of the Scopes trial. And in a sense, the Scopes trial is a funnel for all the fear, all the anxiety, all the changes, all in a sense, the kind of frenetic hilarity of the decade.

6:49 The Scopes trial centered around a new act of legislation, the Butler Act, but it also centered around a new organization, the American Civil Liberties Union. Tell us a little about Roger Baldwin, one of its co-founders.

7:01 Yeah. U Roger Baldwin, very interesting man. He was Harvard educated, Boston bred. He had worked in social work. He was also a pacifist who helped pacifists in World War I. He was actually arrested and jailed for his pacifism. He didn't want the United States to partake in the European War. And so what happened was that he helped form something called the National Civil Liberties Bureau. And that morphed or turned into the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920. And that union then as now offered to help anyone who believed constitutional rights had been threatened or violated. So it was only 5 years old at the time of the Scopes trial.

7:49 And what was the ACLU's goal in challenging the Butler Act? The ACLU at this particular time was looking for what they call test cases. And what a test case was was a way to advertise their existence and also let people know that they would help protect civil liberties, whether it was free speech, freedom of the press and assembly, any first amendment rights. And so they wanted to educate people and they also wanted to protect people whose rights had been violated. And as I said, quite a number of people since the Red Summer, since 1919 and before the war had been enduring violations of civil rights. So when a secretary saw the Butler Act, saw what was going on in Tennessee, she alerted Roger Baldwin and said, "This would probably make a very good test case."

8:45 So let's turn our attention then to the Butler Act first. What was it about the Butler Act that the ACLU objected to? And what was going on in Tennessee that made the legislature there pass it in the first place?

8:55 Well, in the simplest sense, the Butler Act, which prevents any public school, whether it's a high school, elementary school, college that's supported by the state, any of those schools that teach evolution, which denies creation as taught in the Bible, that would be prohibited. When the ACLU saw this, they wanted the test case because in Tennessee, this legislation had passed in 1925 partly to plate evangelical members of the legislature. It was known as the Butler Act because someone named John Washington Butler who was a farmer, he ran for office on this single issue of evolution or anti-evolution.

9:43 the governor, a man named Pier, I think that's how you pronounce it, signed the act, but no one really thought that it would be enforced.

9:51 So then, as you see it, what was the trial really about then? Was it purely secularism versus religion?

9:58 Well, yes and no. John Washington Butler didn't really understand what evolution was. And I would argue, and I think I'm right about this, that most people didn't understand what evolution was. They had some notion that it was bad for children. But in that sense, evolution becomes a proxy for other issues that we just talked about that are upsetting to people. The church itself was divided really about whether evolution was compatible with the Bible. Certainly there were liberal clergy in the church as well as fundamentalist clergy. So the issue really isn't secularism versus religion per se because nobody understood what evolution was and religion really wasn't being attacked.

10:54 I wonder if you could expand on how evolution, a scientific theory presumably based on evidence and facts, could become a proxy for social issues. There was so much going on in the 1920s that evolution becomes a kind of lens through which other issues are discussed and debated in a court of law. And as we mentioned, constitutional issues having to do with academic freedom. Who's going to teach the children? Is it going to be experts? Is it going to be religious figures? Who decides what goes on in the classroom? who decides what goes into textbooks. And in that particular sense, the issue of religion or evolution becomes a wider contest about control just as prohibition was a wider contest about control. How are you going to legislate what people think, feel, do, who they love, what they read? So you can see that the issues around freedom, censorship, school, the rights of the individual all

12:09 become wrapped up in a discussion about science and expertise. Now the epicenter of the Scopes trial was Dayton, Tennessee, and hundreds and hundreds of people descended on this town. the prosecution, defense teams, evangelicals and scientists, the press, merchants, even selling Bibles and monkey themed souvenirs. It was an absolute circus. But I wonder, is this what Dayton wanted?

12:35 Well, in a way, it is what Dayton wanted. They didn't want a circus, per se, but they were really glad to have so much controversy coming to their city because in a sense, it sells. This is America after all and this is an opportunity for the Chamber of Commerce to bring attention to Dayton, Tennessee. It had previously or was the strawberry capital of the world, very small town and the presiding judge of the trial said that he would be happy to have the trial in a stadium. So the people of Dayton, Tennessee were happy to have all of this commotion. It got a little excessive. And in terms of the way the press handled it, the press handled the hubbhub or excitement in Tennessee as if it were a carnival and as if it were a freak show really in many ways. But the people themselves said that they were excited. There were two great ortors coming to town, two well-known figures, superstars, and they also thought that

13:43 they would get an education for nothing. Leaping ahead, I'm curious about the longlasting effects of this trial on Dayton. Certainly, it's not a very ordinary way of promoting a small town.

13:53 No, it really isn't an ordinary way of promoting a small town, but I'm not sure that there were lasting effects. Once the trial was over, the trial barely lasted a week. Everybody left. So, in some sense, Dayton comes down to us as the center of a kind of circus. I'm not sure that that did the town much good. But on the other hand, it didn't really matter because things went back to the way they had always been.

14:34 Let's turn to William Jennings Bryant, lead prosecutor in the trial and a famous politician in order. He was a Democrat, a progressive, a populist, but he was also a fundamentalist who believed in the literal word of the Bible. What else was he?

14:48 William Jennings Brian was a threetime presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket. He was part of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. He in fact served in Woodro Wilson's cabinet when Wilson was president. And when Wilson was president and World War I began, Jennings Bryan resigned from the cabinet because he felt that Wilson wasn't acting neutral enough. At the same time, he was an ardent prohibitionist. He believed that government could and should legislate morality. He felt that he knew what was right. He was a populist in the sense that we understand populism today. He was a newspaper man.

15:37 He had a newspaper called the commoner. He was called the commoner because he seemed to speak for the people. And as you said, he was definitely a fundamentalist. And when I say fundamentalist, the simplest way of understanding that is that he understood that the Bible was the word of God. That the Bible was to be read literally. So whatever the Bible said was absolutely true and that's very important.

16:08 How was that important for Brian and his view of Darwinism? Well, the interesting thing about Brian with his very storied career by 1925 he's in his 60s. He probably isn't going to run for president again. Although with Brian you could never tell. And Brian understood Darwinism as social Darwinism. And really that was a gross misunderstanding. He really thought social Darwinism was responsible in many ways for all the ills that the country was facing at the time. And most specifically he held it responsible for the slaughter in World War I. He felt Darwinism or what he understood as social Darwinism had allowed people because of their views of technology or their use of technology had allowed them to create basically such terrible weapons as mustard gas as aerial bombing. And he also believed that Darwinism, which was really social Darwinism for him, was at the base of a kind of less a fair capitalism and

17:23 therefore immorality because to him social Darwinism and to many people meant only the survival of the fittest. And the survival of the fittest was a point of view that said only the best, only the most knowledgeable, only the creme de la creme should be in power. And as the commoner, as a man of the people, Brian thought this was deeply offensive. So in that sense that is why he went around the country and was adamant about getting Darwinism or the theory of evolution out of the schools.

18:04 Now evolution and Darwinism also was contentious within the church of course especially the Presbyterian church. Tell us about the split in the Presbyterian church and how did Brian position himself in this fight? to Brian the liberal clergy men like Henry Emerson Fosdic in New York City and many others liberal clergy who said there was no incompatibility no difficulty in reconciling science and religion to Brian these kinds of clergy were actually heretics and they threatened the fabric of morality and the nation even more than so-called atheist which he didn't like either But liberal clergy themselves felt Brian didn't understand what science was. That a theory, perhaps even the theory of gravity is not guesswork or fiction, but it's a hypothesis that exists in science backed up, as you mentioned before, by careful facts and experimentation.

19:07 and in the case of evolution had been around already for almost 75 years and had not been proved wrong. But Brian felt that not only was social Darwinism i.e. Darwin terrible, but people in the liberal clergy were also risking the church. When he went to Dayton, for example, he said that he was fighting a duel to the death on behalf of Christianity. So he really felt that he was a crusader. Do you think that Brian was ideologically pure in this or was he also a political opportunist?

19:44 He was both. One can be both actually and that's what's so interesting about Brian. He was definitely a political opportunist. Preaching against evolution was definitely a way to garner votes. He had moved from the Midwest to the South. He was in Florida. He was pandering to the segregationists and white supremacists of Florida as a way to retaining his significant power and perhaps get back into the Senate. He was adamant about saying the white race was more advanced than African-Americans. That he was glad to be a Caucasian. It was the best of all possible worlds. And in this particular sense, he was also comfortable with the Ku Klux Clan. He was never a member, which is important to point out. But when the clan had a kind of hold on the Democratic party and southern Democrats in particular, Brian actually defended them at the Democratic National Convention 1924 when people wanted to censor and

20:58 denounce the clan. And this became a political issue right then. He said, "No, no, you don't want to give them more credibility. They're just misguided." which is kind of astonishing in 1924. It's as astonishing then as it is now.

21:14 So what did he think was at stake in the Scopes trial in summary, I guess? Well, Brian came to Dayton, Tennessee. He had been asked to prosecute Scopes by the World Christian Fundamentalist Association. For him there was no doubt that the issues at stake were God and faith. He felt that the universities, the schools were grooming children to become atheists. Atheism was going to destroy America. And he was there to prevent the corruption of young minds. almost in the same way he wanted to prevent the sale and distribution of alcohol.

22:03 Now, in addition to William Jennings Brian, there were other very charismatic and influential evangelical speakers, especially on the national scene at the time. People like Amy Sample McFersonson and Billy Sunday who each reached huge numbers of people. Give us an overview of who these people were and how their views aligned with Brian's or perhaps didn't. Well, there were two very famous besides Brian fundamentalist preachers in the 1920s. Amy Simple McFerson was a very unusual woman. She had a church in Los Angeles. She was self-made evangelical healer. She got a car that she called the gospel car and she went coast to coast. She spoke to audiences of thousands and she was very well suited to early radio. She actually had her own radio station. She put on remarkable shows. She would have spectacles almost as if they were oporadic. She was not a supremacist. She welcomed everyone into the church, but

23:08 she was adamantly against evolution. She definitely backed William Jennings Bryan and she had her entire congregation, she said, pray for the outcome of the Scopes trial that he would be victorious as she felt he should be.

23:26 And what about Billy Sunday? Billy Sunday was very different from Amy Simple McFersonson. He'd been a pro baseball player, but he became an evangelist. People flocked to hear his fire and brimstone sermons where he would get up on stage and he would actually have a fist fight with the devil. So he was another showman. He despised evolution. I'm not sure he understood it either, but it sold tickets. He called it a godforsaken hellborn bastard theory and Darwin a rotten old infidel. He spoke in the kind of down home slang. People absolutely loved him. So he was another very unusual person. He actually tried to run for president in 1920. There was no way that was going to happen. But you get a sort of lay of the evangelical land with Amy Simple McFerson, Billy Sunday and then of course you have William Jennings Bryan. So that gives us a sense of the evangelical star power aligned with William Jennings Brian against the

24:33 teaching of evolution. Now on the defense team in the Scopes trial was another famous lawyer but an agnostic Clarence Darrow. He agreed to defend John Scopes. Tell us more about him and what got him to Dayton. Clarence Darrow is another very unusual figure. And just the fact of Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan showing up in Dayton is part of the reason that you had almost 200 journalists and camera people and spectators come to Dayton because people just wanted to see these two men duke it out. They were both so enormously famous. And Darl was also controversially famous. He had been a labor lawyer for many many years and he had defended bombthrows actually. He defended pacifists and most recently in 1924 he defended two young men uh Nathan Leupold and Richard Lobe who in Chicago just for the thrill of it killed teenager Bobby Franks in a trial itself that riveted the nation because they

25:41 themselves Leopold and Lobe admitted to what they had done and had no remorse about it as far as Darl was concerned though he knew they were guilty. He thought they were pathological specimens but he so hated capital punishment that he took on the case not to acquit them but to make sure that they didn't get the death penalty which they didn't which is rather remarkable. He was often characterized as an atheist, but as you say, he was an agnostic, which meant he was happy that people believed in God. He would believe in God if he could or if evidence showed him that there was such a thing. Um, he was called by the journalist Lincoln Stephins an attorney for the damned because he was always fighting for the underdog, for civil rights, for human liberty. One of the things I like about Darl is he would come to the courtroom every day and on his lapel he wore a very interesting pen said lll.

26:43 He was asked what does that mean? And he looked up and he said live and let live.

26:49 Well, as Clarence Daros saw it, what was the scopes trial about? For him, it was not about religion. It was about democracy. It was about the constitution. It was about freedom. It was about academic freedom. It was about the freedom to worship, the freedom not to worship. He wanted to take on this trial which he felt was enormously important for the sake of American democracy and because he thought Brian was a fanatic and fanaticism in America he thought was enormously dangerous. But Daryl was not the only defense attorney working for Scopes. He had two others.

27:34 Why do you think Arthur Garfield Hayes and Dudleyfield Malone are also interesting?

27:40 They're both very interesting in the sense that Daryl's team is composed of himself an agnostic. Arthur Garfield Hayes who is a secular Jew. He had been associated with the ACLU and he stayed associated with the ACLU for the rest of his life. He had assisted as Taro had in the Sacko and Vincetti defense two Italian anarchist immigrants accused of robbery and murder in Massachusetts. And he was very smart, very gifted and willing to take on these civil liberties cases. Some of them he knew they were doomed, but as he would say always, "When we lose, we win."

28:25 So what about Dudleyfield Malone, the other attorney? Dudleyfield Malone from New York also worked in the Wilson administration and he quit when he realized Wilson who had promised to help pass legislation and the amendment giving women the vote hadn't done it. He married a suffragette, Doris Stevens, who was arrested in front of the White House for picketing. And he was Catholic.

29:06 So, we have some amazing characters and an atmosphere that is designed to be circus-like in service of Dayton's economy. What was your favorite part of the trial?

29:14 I think everyone's favorite part of the trial is the spectacular last day when Darl as a lawyer does something lawyers do not do and he puts the lead prosecuting attorney, William Jennings Brian, on the stand. Not only that, they were outside by this time because there had been so many people in the courtroom that the floor was giving way and the judge was afraid that the whole floor would crash. So they all marched outside. They sat outside in the July heat, you know, in a makeshift witness box. Brian was there and Daryl turned to him and said, "Do you really believe that God created the universe in six days?" and Brian he had been hedging and then he said well by a day it's not necessarily a day like we know it could be an era and everybody hearing this was shocked was stunned because what he did when he said it could be an era he undermined his own position of reading the Bible literally so he'd been caught

30:24 in a trap it was really a trap of his own making so at the conclusion of the trial how did People talk about who won and who lost.

30:33 Technically speaking, Brian in the defense won as everybody would have anticipated because John Scopes, who taught evolution in his biology class, he had broken the law. The defense wanted to get the issue before the Supreme Court. And they tried definitely to do this. They were not able to ultimately. But even though the defense lost the case, Malone called it a victorious defeat because in many ways Darl who had tried the case in the court of public opinion. He really won public opinion and Brian had been for better or worse humiliated on the stand and his position made to seem absurd.

31:26 Now this humiliation might seem tragic because the trial ended on July 21st and Brian died on July 26, only 5 days later. What impact did his death have so soon after the trial? It's interesting and certainly it had a short-term impact because burlesks and satists and newspapers who were ready to lampoon and mock Brian suddenly held the presses they weren't going to do that. Brian dying so close to the end of the trial. His death was seen by many people especially the fundamentalists as a martyrdom that he was felled in the defense just like the son of god. So he at that point was written about in very glowing terms as heroic and sacrificial.

32:20 The clan, the Kuclux Clan of Ohio actually sent a large cross of red roses to the funeral. But in that particular sense too, although Malone and Hayes and even Darrow said that they were very sorry, there was a black columnist for a well-known newspaper who said, "Negroes have nothing to treasure out of the life of William Jennings Brian." And people like Eugene Debs, who had spent many years in jail, jailed for being a pacifist, found the whole idea of Brian now being glorified as hypocritical and offensive. So, it's interesting and in a way there's a kind of pathos to the demise, the death of Brian, but I don't think it changed people's opinions except in a small community all that much.

33:16 Now, as you mentioned, the defense lost this case and Scopes was found guilty and the case never made it to the Supreme Court as the defense and the ACLU had hoped. So, why was this case a big deal?

33:27 It was a watershed moment. For one thing, even though the Butler Act stayed on the books, it was not enforced. That's the first thing. It wasn't actually repealed until the 1960s, which is a really long time. But legislation that had been pending that was very similar to the Butler Act really went nowhere. So that was really important. The second thing is that as I said, the fundamentalist lost in the court of public opinion. To think that they were going to then disappear is erroneous because from one point of view you could argue that they went underground and organized politically.

34:04 And then after all was said and done what happened to John Scopes? John Scopes John Scopes never gets talked about and in fact that was his own desire. In the 1920s he would have been a movie star. someone came to Scopes and said they'd like to make a film about him or that he should write his life story. Scopes did not want the limelight. He wanted to pursue his career. And so that the seven scientists and others who'd come to Dayton to testify and were not allowed to testify, they pulled together funds that enabled Scopes to attend the University of Chicago Graduate School. And when he got his degree, he went to work as a geologist in Venezuela for Gulf Oil. He didn't write his memoirs until sometime in the 60s. And he said something in those memoirs I think that's really important and it gives you, I think, an insight into his positional during the trial. Quiet though he was, he said,

35:09 "Liberty is always under threat and it takes eternal vigilance to maintain it." So this year 2025 is the 100th anniversary of the Scopes trial. What is the legacy of this event and why should people consider it important today? The legacy of this trial is complicated in a way. It was always dismissed or often dismissed as a kind of freak show carnival where the Chamber of Commerce in Dayton wanted to sell tickets, but there was much more at stake at the trial. And what's at stake is the nature and the meaning of America and what it means to be in America and specifically to live in a democracy which enshrines in its constitution freedom to worship or not worship. that enshrines in its constitution the freedom to think, the freedom to write, the freedom to explore, the freedom to know, the freedom to read and to learn because these freedoms are always something that must be protected. And I think in

36:19 conclusion, Clarence Darrow, who was extremely eloquent, as certainly as eloquent as Brian, said, "You can only be free if I am free."

36:30 Brenda Weineapple, thank you so much for talking with me today on American History Tellers.

36:34 Thank you. A pleasure. That was my conversation with Brenda Weineapple, author of the best-selling book, Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation. Available wherever you get your books. from Wondery. This is the fourth and final episode of our series of Evolution on Trial for American history tellers. In our next season, we're bringing back a fan favorite, our series on the insurrection of Aaron Burr. In the wake of his infamous duel with Alexander Hamilton in 1804, Aaron Burr was a wanted man. With his political career in shambles, this disgraced vice president began hatching a plot that would return him to power by any means necessary. He would eventually become the highest ranking American official ever to be charged with treason, leading to a sensational trial that would reshape the political landscape of the young American republic.

37:31 American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham, for Airship. Sound design by Molly Bach. Supervising sound designer Matthew Filler. Music by Thrum. Additional writing by Ellie Stanton. This episode was produced by Paulolly Striker and Alita Rosanski. Our senior interview producer is Peter Aruni. Managing producer Desi Bllelock. Senior managing producer is Callum PL. Senior producer Andy Herman. Executive producers are Jenny Lowour Beckman, Marshall Louie, and Aaron Oclarity for Wondery.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Evolution on Trial | Live and Let Live | American History Tellers | Podcast"?

Lindsey Graham (Host), Brenda Wineapple (Guest).

What is "Evolution on Trial | Live and Let Live | American History Tellers | Podcast" about?

The content details a pivotal moment in 1926 Mississippi when an ACLU lawyer seeks a high school teacher willing to challenge a state law that prohibits the teaching of evolution in public schools. The conversation reveals tensions surrounding academic freedom, the implications of recent legal battles, and the broader cultural clash between science and religion during that era.

What is mentioned in this American History Tellers episode?

10 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Butler Act, John Scopes, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Brenda Wineapple, Ku Klux Klan, Roger Baldwin. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Evolution on Trial | Live and Let Live | American History Tellers | Podcast"?

The episode runs 38 min; the transcript is about 5,513 words in 57 timestamped sections.

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