In the rural heartland of the early 1920s, believers in old-fashioned values were caught up in a wave of religious revival. Preachers damned modern scientific rationalism in all of its semblances and advocated a strict and literal interpretation of the Bible as the only source of truth. Modernists and traditionalists had very different opinions and a confrontation appeared imminent. Fundamentalists were particularly annoyed that public schools were teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection rather than the Biblical story of Creation. They did not approve of Adam and Eve being apes and did not care for their children being led astray from their religious beliefs. William Jennings Bryan, the thrice-defeated presidential candi
The trial began Friday, July 10, 1925 and ended July 21, 1925, with Judge John T. Raulston presiding. More than 9000 spectators attended the trial. On the first day, a jury of ten farmers, a schoolteacher, and a clerk were quickly impaneled and the court adjourned for a week. Eventually the trial commenced, but all evidence would have held no support in modern times. Scopes was found guilty, but neither side won the case because the decision was reversed on a technicality involving the judge’s error in imposing a fine that legally could only be set up by the jury. He was wrongfully fined $100. The John Thomas Scopes trial repressed the influence of Fundamentalism in public education and stripped William Jennings Bryan of his dignity as a key figur
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