From July 10-21, 1925, much of the world was riveted by events in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. A twenty-four-year-old high school football coach and substitute biology teacher, John Thomas Scopes (1900-1970), was on trial for violating Tennessee’s Butler Act.
Today many people know about the events surrounding the trial from the play, later movie, Inherit the Wind. Unfortunately, this work adds unhistorical melodrama to the actual story of the trial. The artistic creation was not so much about the Scopes trial as it was a critique of McCarthyism, the 1950s anti-communist movement that was ruining people’s careers and reputations by making unsubstantiated accusations of treason and subversion. I say “unfortunately” because Scopes’s life, the trial, and its aftermath have rich significance for understanding America’s past, present, and future. Together they also illuminate the complex relationships among science, religion, and public policy.
