Childlessness is the state of not having children. Childlessness may have personal, social or political significance.
Childlessness, which may be by choice or circumstance, is distinguished from voluntary childlessness, also called being "childfree", which is voluntarily having no children, and from antinatalism, wherein childlessness is promoted.
Types of childlessness can be classified into several categories:
natural sterility randomly affects individuals. One can
think of it as the minimum level of permanent childlessness that we can
observe in any given society, and is of the order of 2 percent, in line
with data from the Hutterites, a group established as the demographic standard in the 1950s.
social sterility, which one can also call poverty-driven
childlessness, or endogenous sterility, describes the situation of poor
women whose fecundity has been affected by poor living conditions.
people who are childless by circumstance. These people can be
childless because they have not met a partner with whom they would like
to have children, or because they tried unsuccessfully to conceive at an
advanced maternal age,
or because they suffer from certain medical issues, such as
endometriosis or polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), that make it
difficult for them to conceive.
people who are childless by choice.
The first three categories are often grouped under the label "involuntary childlessness". The latter category is often called "voluntary childlessness", also described as being "childfree", occurring when one decides not to reproduce.
Statistics in the United States
The
analysis of the three broad categories of childlessness (natural
sterility, social sterility, voluntary childlessness) outlined above
helps to understand how it has changed over the last century in the
United States.
At the end of the 19th century, income and education levels were low.
This made levels of social sterility very high. In addition to the
causes mentioned above, the Spanish Influenza epidemics meant that pregnant women who were infected were particularly vulnerable to miscarriages. The Great Depression
also impoverished these generations, for whom voluntary childlessness
was almost absent. On the whole, the rates of childlessness for married
women born between 1871 and 1915 fluctuated between 15 and 20 percent.
The rise in both education and overall income allowed subsequent
generations to escape from situations where couples were “constrained”
from having children, and rates of childlessness began to fall. Over
time, the nature of childlessness changed, becoming more and more the
chosen outcome of some educated women. A low level of childlessness of
7% was achieved by the generation of the baby boom. It started to rise
again for the subsequent generations, with 12 percent of women born in
1964-68 remaining childless. Social causes of childlessness have now
completely disappeared for women in union. This is however not true for
single women, who are usually poorer, for whom social sterility still
exists.
After
a relatively stable birth rate for thirty years, the number of live
births per 100 women aged 15 to 44 resumed a decline beginning in
2008—to record low rates.
From 2007 to 2011, the fertility rate in the U.S. declined 9%, the Pew Research Center
reporting in 2010 that the birth rate was the lowest in U.S. history
and that childlessness rose across all racial and ethnic groups to about
1 in 5 versus 1 in 10 in the 1970s. The CDC
released statistics in the first quarter of 2016 confirming that the
U.S. fertility rate had fallen to its lowest point since record keeping
started in 1909: 59.8 births per 1,000 women, half its high of 122.9 in
1957. Even taking the falling fertility rate into account, the U.S. Census Bureau still projected that the U.S. population would increase from 319 million (2014) to 400 million by 2051.
Statistics in Europe
In a paper presented at a 2013 United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
work session on Demographic Projections, Swedish statisticians reported
that since the 2000s, childlessness had decreased in Sweden and
marriages had increased. It had also become more common for couples to
have a third child suggesting that the nuclear family was no longer in
decline in Sweden.
The number of people over 50 in the UK without adult children in 2023 was reported to be 20 percent.
Causes
Reasons for childlessness include, but are not limited to, the following:
Personal choice, that is, having the physical, mental, and financial capability to have children but choosing not to (that is, voluntary childlessness), also called being "childfree".
Infertility,
the inability of a person or persons to conceive, due to complications
related to either or both a woman or a man. This is regarded as the most
prominent reason for involuntary childlessness. Biological causes of
infertility vary because many organs of both sexes must function
properly for conception to take place. Infertility also affects people
who are unable to conceive a second or subsequent pregnancy. This is
called secondary infertility.
Mental-health difficulties, such as impairment of executive functioning, that prevent a would-be parent from being able to properly raise a child.
Chronic illness/disability: Many serious chronic health conditions
put the health of the mother and baby at undue risk if she were to
become pregnant. These women are advised not to become pregnant. Some
chronic health issues/disabilities obviate a parent from being able to
care for a child.
Practical difficulties involving features of one's environment:
Effects of social, cultural, or legal norms (sometimes referred to as "social infertility"):
Combination of
Lack of a partner or partner's being of same biological sex as person in question
with
Social or legal barriers to family formation through non-biological means (adoption or family "blending"), e.g.,
prohibitions against adoption by single persons, adoption by same-sex
couples, marriage to a partner of the same sex who already has children,
etc.
Economic or social pressure to pursue a career before having
children, increasing the odds of eventual infertility due to advanced
maternal age
Lack of resources sufficient to make bearing or raising a child a practically viable option:
Insufficiency of financial resources vis-à-vis the level of family and other community support available
Insufficiency of access to medical care (often overlaps with insufficiency of financial resources)
Insufficiency of access to supportive care necessitated by
employment commitments or mental-health impairments to daily functioning
(see above)
Unwillingness of one's partner, where existent, to conceive or
raise children (includes partners who are unwilling to adopt children
despite being biologically infertile, of the same biological sex, or
physically absent)
The death of all of a person's already-conceived children either before birth (as with miscarriage and stillbirth) or after birth (as with infant and child mortality) coupled with a person's not having yet had other children for reasons ranging from physical or emotional exhaustion
to having passed childbearing age. Infant and child death can happen
for any number of reasons, usually medical or environmental, such as
biological malformations, maternal complications, accident or other
injury, and disease. Both the existence of many of these causes and the
severity of their harm when present can be mitigated by ensuring that
the infant's or child's environment features resources ranging from
parenting and safety information to pre-, peri-, and postnatal medical
care for mother and child.
Medical interventions may be available to some individuals or couples to treat involuntary childlessness. Some options include artificial insemination, intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICIS) and in vitro fertilization. Artificial insemination is the process in which sperm is collected via masturbation
and inserted into the uterus immediately after ovulation.
Intracytoplasmic sperm injection is a more recent technique that
involves injecting a single sperm directly into an egg, the egg is then
placed in the uterus by in vitro fertilization. In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the process in which a mature ovum
is surgically removed from a women's ovary, placed in a medium with
sperm until fertilization occurs and then placed in the women's uterus.
About 50,000 babies in the United States are conceived this way and are
sometimes referred to as "test-tube babies." Other forms of assisted reproductive technology include, gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT) and zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT).
Fertility drugs also may improve the chances of conception in women.
For those facing social infertility (such as single individuals
or same-sex couples) as well as heterosexual couples with medical
infertility, other options include surrogacy and adoption. Surrogacy,
in this case a surrogate mother, is the process in which a woman
becomes pregnant (usually by artificial insemination or surgical
implantation of a fertilized egg) for the purpose of carrying the fetus
to term for another individual or couple. Another option may be adoption; to adopt is to take voluntarily (a child of other parents) as one's own child.
Contraception
All
forms of contraception have played a role in voluntary childlessness
over time, but the invention of reliable oral contraception contributed
profoundly to changes in societal ideas and norms. Voluntary
childlessness, resulting from contraception has influenced women's
health, laws and policies, interpersonal relationships, feminist issues,
and sexual practices among adults and adolescents.
The availability of oral contraception during the late 1900s was
directly related to the women's rights movement by establishing, for the
first time, a mass distribution of a way to control fertility. The
so-called "pill" gave women the opportunity to make different life
choices they may not previously have been able to make, such as for
example, furthering their career. This led to monumental changes in the
current gender and family roles.
Margaret Sanger,
an activist in 1914, was an important figure during the reproductive
rights movement. She coined the term "birth control" and opened the
first birth control clinic in the U.S. Sanger collaborated with many
others to make the first oral contraception possible, these persons
include: Gregory Pincus, John Rock, Frank Colton, and Katherine McCormick. The pill was approved by the FDA
(Food and Drug Administration) for contraceptive use in the year 1960
and although it was controversial, it remained the most popular form of
birth control in the U.S. until 1967 when there was a rise in publicity
about the possible health risks associated with the pill; consequently
sales dropped twenty-four percent. In the year 1988 the original
high-dose pill was taken off the market and replaced with a low-dose
pill that was considered to have less risks and some health benefits.
Impacts
Personal
For
most individuals, for most of history, childlessness has been regarded
as a great personal tragedy, involving much emotional pain and grief,
especially when it resulted from a failure to conceive or from the death
of a child. Before conception was well understood, childlessness was
usually blamed on the woman and this in itself added to the high level
of negative emotional and social effects of childlessness. “Some wealthy
families also adopted children, as a means of providing heirs in cases
of childlessness or where no sons had been born.” The monetary incentives offered by Westerners' desire for children is so strong that a commercial market in child laundering exists.
People trying to cope with involuntary childlessness may experience
symptoms of distress that are similar to those experienced by bereaved
people, such as health problems, anxiety and depression.
Political
Specific instances of childlessness, especially in cases of royal succession,
but more generally for people in positions of power or influence, have
had enormous impacts on politics, culture and society. In many cases, a
lack of a male child was also considered a type of childlessness, since
male children were needed as heirs to property and titles. Examples of
historical impacts of actual or potential childlessness include:
Elizabeth I of England
was childless, choosing not to marry in part to prevent political
instability in the kingdom, which passed on her death from the House of
Tudor to the House of Stuart.
Henry VIII of England divorced his first wife Catherine of Aragon,
to whom he had been married for more than 20 years, because she had not
produced a male heir to the throne. This decision set in motion a break
between the English and the Roman churches that reverberated across
Europe for centuries.
Queen Anne
had seventeen pregnancies but none of her children survived so the
throne passed from the House of Stuart to the House of Hanover.
Napoléon’s first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais, did not bear him any children so he divorced her and married another in order to produce an heir.
The lack of a male heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne in Japan brought the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis.
Social
Socially,
childlessness has also resulted in financial stress and sometimes ruin
in societies which depend on their offspring to contribute economically
and to support other members of the family or tribe. “In agricultural
societies about 20 per cent of all couples would not have children
because of problems for at least one of the partners. Worry about
assuring the desired birth rate could become an important part of family
life … even after a first child was born. … In agricultural societies
up to half of all children born would die within two years … (Excess
surviving children could among other things, be sent to childless
families to provide labour there, reducing upkeep demands at home.) When
a population disaster hit – like war or major disease – higher birth
rates might briefly be feasible to fill out community ranks.”
In the 20th and 21st centuries, when control over conception
became reliable in some countries, childlessness is having an enormous
impact on national planning and financial planning. In societies where child-bearing is a sign of a high libido, childlessness may be viewed as a sign of low libido. They may also be disparaged with terms like genetic dead end.
In countries, even those with state health and social care
services, children often support elderly family members either by
becoming their full or part time carers, or by, for example,
accompanying them to medical appointments, helping with cleaning and
shopping, taking care of intimate personal care tasks or by looking
after their finances. If national health and care services dwindle due
to decreased funding or lack of staff, and if the numbers of people
without children nearby increase, the statistics for those left without
help and support as they age, are set to soar.
Stigma
In a
society that encourages and promotes parenthood, with its current social
norms and culture, childlessness can be stigmatizing. The idea couples
should reproduce and want to reproduce remains widespread in North
America, contrary to most European cultures.
Childlessness may be considered deviant behavior in marriage and this
may lead to adverse effects on the relationship of the couple, as well
as their individual identities when pertaining to the lack of children
being involuntary. For persons that consider that becoming parents was a
critical process of their adult family life, a "transition" as Rossi
deems it must take place. This transition is from the anticipated
parenthood to an unwanted status of non-parenthood. Such a transition
may require the individual to readjust their perspective of self or
relationship role with their significant other.
Possible positive impacts
Education:
Childless persons tend to have higher educations than those that do
have children. Due to their higher education these childless couples
also tend to have professional and managerial positions.
Finances: As a result of their higher educations, higher paying
jobs, and dual income, childless couples tend to have greater financial
stability as compared to those with children. On average, a childless
couple spends 60 percent more on entertainment, 79 percent more on food
and 101 percent more on dining out. Childless couples are also more
likely to have pets and those that do tend to spend a good deal more
money on them.
Quality of Living: Childless persons typically eat healthier than
those with children, consuming more meat, fruits and vegetables.
Happiness may also play a distinctive role in the comparison to people
with children and those without. Different studies have indicated that
marital happiness dramatically decreases after a child is born and does
not recover until after the last child has left the house. A study at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that working outside the home
and receiving less support from extended family, as well as other
factors, has increased the level of stress associated with raising
children and decreased overall marital satisfaction as a result.
Childless couples were more likely to take vacations, exercise, and
overall live a healthier life style than those that have children.
Economists distinguish between nationalization and socialization,
which refers to the process of restructuring the economic framework,
organizational structure, and institutions of an economy on a socialist basis. By contrast, nationalization does not necessarily imply social ownership and the restructuring of the economic system. By itself, nationalization has nothing to do with socialism – historically, states have carried out nationalizations for various different purposes under a wide variety of different political systems and economic systems.
Political support
Nationalization was one of the major mechanisms advocated by reformist socialists and social democrats
for gradually transitioning to socialism. In this context, the goals of
nationalization were to dispossess large capitalists, redirect the
profits of industry to the public purse, and establish some form of workers' self-management as a precursor to the establishment of a socialist economic system.
Although sometimes undertaken as part of a strategy to build
socialism, more commonly nationalization was also undertaken and used to
protect and develop industries perceived as being vital to a nation's
competitiveness (such as aerospace and shipbuilding), or to protect jobs
in certain industries.
Nationalization has had varying levels of support throughout history. After the Second World War, nationalization was supported by some social democratic parties throughout Western Europe, such as the British Labour Party. In the United States, potentially nationalizing healthcare
is often a topic of political disagreement and makes frequent
appearances in debates between political candidates. A 2019 poll found
that about half of residents support the measure.
A re-nationalization occurs when state-owned assets are privatized and later nationalized again, often when a different political party or faction
is in power. A re-nationalization process may also be called "reverse
privatization". Nationalization has been used to refer to either direct
state-ownership and management of an enterprise or to a government
acquiring a large controlling share of a publicly listed corporation.
According to research by Paasha Mahdavi, leaders who consider
nationalization face a dilemma: "nationalize and reap immediate gains
while risking future prosperity, or maintain private operations, thereby
passing on revenue windfalls but securing long-term fiscal streams."
He argues that leaders "nationalize extractive resources to extend the
duration of their power" by using "this increased capital to secure
political support."
Economic analysis
Nationalization can have positive and negative effects.
In 2019 research based on studies from Greenwich University found that
the nationalization of key services such as water, bus, railways and
broadband in the United Kingdom could save £13bn every year.
Conversely, an assessment from the Institute for Fiscal Studies
found that it would add at least £150bn to the national debt and make it
harder for the United Kingdom to hit its climate change targets. This
analysis was based on the assumption that the UK Government would have
to pay the market rate for these industries.
Nationalization can produce adverse effects, such as reducing
competition in the marketplace, which in turn reduces incentives to
innovation and maintains high prices. In the short run, nationalization
can provide a larger revenue stream for government, but can cause the
industry to falter in the longer run. The collapse of the Venezuelan oil industry, due to government mismanagement, is a case in point.
Expropriation
"Expropriation" redirects here. For the 1974 Chilean film, see The Expropriation.
Expropriation is the seizure of private property by a public
agency for a purpose deemed to be in the public interest. It may also be
used as a penalty for criminal proceedings. Expropriation differs from eminent domain
in that the property owner is not compensated for the seized property.
Unlike eminent domain, expropriation may also refer to the taking of
private property by a private entity authorized by a government to take property in certain situations.
Due to political risks that are involved when countries engage in
international business, it is important to understand the expropriation
risks and laws within each of the countries in which business is
conducted in order to understand the risks as an investor in that
country.
Studies
have found that nationalization follows a cyclical trend.
Nationalization rose in the 1960s and 1970s, followed by an increase in
privatization in the 80s and 90s, followed again by an increase in
nationalization in the 2000s and 2010s.
However, nationalization is not a specifically socialist
strategy, and Marxism's founders were skeptical of its value. As Engels
put it:
Therein precisely lies the rub;
for, so long as the propertied classes remain at the helm,
nationalisation never abolishes exploitation but merely changes its form
— in the French, American or Swiss republics no less than in monarchist
Central, and despotic Eastern, Europe.
— Friedrich Engels, Letter from Engels to Max Oppenheim, 24 March 1891
Nikolai Bukharin also criticised the term 'nationalisation', preferring the term 'statisation' instead.
On the trial's seventh day, proceedings were moved outdoors because of excessive heat. William Jennings Bryan (seated, left) is being questioned by Clarence Darrow.
The Scopes trial, formally The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case from July 10 to July 21, 1925, in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it illegal for teachers to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he incriminated himself deliberately so the case could have a defendant.
Scopes was found guilty and was fined $100 (equivalent to $1,700 in 2022), but the verdict
was overturned on a technicality. The trial served its purpose of
drawing intense national publicity, as national reporters flocked to
Dayton to cover the high-profile lawyers who had agreed to represent
each side. William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow served as the defense attorney for Scopes. The trial publicized the fundamentalist–modernist controversy, which set Modernists, who said evolution could be consistent with religion, against fundamentalists, who said the word of God as revealed in the Bible
took priority over all human knowledge. The case was thus seen both as a
theological contest and as a trial on whether evolution should be
taught in schools.
Origins
State Representative John Washington Butler, a Tennessee farmer and head of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, lobbied state legislatures to pass anti-evolution laws. He succeeded when the Butler Act was passed in Tennessee, on March 25, 1925. Butler later stated, "I didn't know anything about evolution...
I'd read in the papers that boys and girls were coming home from school
and telling their fathers and mothers that the Bible was all nonsense."
Tennessee governor Austin Peay
signed the bill to gain support among rural legislators, but believed
the law would neither be enforced nor interfere with education in
Tennessee schools. William Jennings Bryan
thanked Peay enthusiastically for the bill: "The Christian parents of
the state owe you a debt of gratitude for saving their children from the
poisonous influence of an unproven hypothesis."
In response, the American Civil Liberties Union financed a test case
in which John Scopes, a Tennessee high school science teacher, agreed
to be tried for violating the Act. Scopes, who had substituted for the
regular biology teacher, was charged on May 5, 1925, with teaching
evolution from a chapter in George William Hunter's textbook, Civic Biology: Presented in Problems (1914), which described the theory of evolution, race, and eugenics. The two sides brought in the biggest legal names in the nation, Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense, and the trial was followed on radio transmissions throughout the United States.
Dayton, Tennessee
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) offered to defend anyone accused of teaching the theory of evolution in defiance of the Butler Act. On April 5, 1925, George Rappleyea, local manager for the Cumberland Coal and Iron Company, arranged a meeting with county superintendent of schools Walter White and local attorney Sue K. Hicks
at Robinson's Drug Store, convincing them that the controversy of such a
trial would give Dayton much needed publicity. According to Robinson,
Rappleyea said "As it is, the law is not enforced. If you win, it will
be enforced. If I win, the law will be repealed. We're game, aren't we?"
The men then summoned 24-year-old John T. Scopes, a Dayton high school science and math teacher. The group asked Scopes to admit to teaching the theory of evolution.
Rappleyea pointed out that, while the Butler Act prohibited the
teaching of the theory of evolution, the state required teachers to use a
textbook that explicitly described and endorsed the theory of
evolution, and that teachers were, therefore, effectively required to
break the law.
Scopes mentioned that while he couldn't remember whether he had
actually taught evolution in class, he had, however, gone through the
evolution chart and chapter with the class. Scopes added to the group:
"If you can prove that I've taught evolution and that I can qualify as a
defendant, then I'll be willing to stand trial."
Scopes urged students to testify against him and coached them in their answers.
He was indicted on May 25, after three students testified against him
at the grand jury; one student afterwards told reporters: "I believe in
part of evolution, but I don't believe in the monkey business." Judge John T. Raulston accelerated the convening of the grand jury and "...all
but instructed the grand jury to indict Scopes, despite the meager
evidence against him and the widely reported stories questioning whether
the willing defendant had ever taught evolution in the classroom".
Scopes was charged with having taught from the chapter on evolution to a
high-school class in violation of the Butler Act and nominally
arrested, though he was never actually detained. Paul Patterson, owner
of The Baltimore Sun, put up $500 in bail for Scopes.
The original prosecutors were Herbert E. and Sue K. Hicks, two brothers who were local attorneys and friends of Scopes, but the prosecution was ultimately led by Tom Stewart, a graduate of Cumberland School of Law,
who later became a U.S. Senator. Stewart was aided by Dayton attorney
Gordon McKenzie, who supported the anti-evolution bill on religious
grounds, and described evolution as "detrimental to our morality" and an
assault on "the very citadel of our Christian religion".
Hoping to attract major press coverage, George Rappleyea went so far as to write to the British novelist H. G. Wells
asking him to join the defense team. Wells replied that he had no legal
training in Britain, let alone in America, and declined the offer. John R. Neal, a law school professor from Knoxville,
announced that he would act as Scopes' attorney whether Scopes liked it
or not, and he became the nominal head of the defense team.
Baptist pastor William Bell Riley, the founder and president of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, was instrumental in calling lawyer and three-time Democraticpresidential nominee, former United States Secretary of State, and lifelong PresbyterianWilliam Jennings Bryan
to act as that organization's counsel. Bryan had originally been
invited by Sue Hicks to become an associate of the prosecution and Bryan
had readily accepted, despite the fact he had not tried a case in
thirty-six years. As Scopes pointed out to James Presley in the book Center of the Storm,
on which the two collaborated: "After [Bryan] was accepted by the state
as a special prosecutor in the case, there was never any hope of
containing the controversy within the bounds of constitutionality."
In response, the defense sought out Clarence Darrow, an agnostic.
Darrow originally declined, fearing his presence would create a circus
atmosphere, but eventually realized that the trial would be a circus
with or without him, and agreed to lend his services to the defense,
later saying he "realized there was no limit to the mischief that might
be accomplished unless the country was aroused to the evil at hand". After many changes back and forth, the defense team consisted of Darrow, ACLU attorney Arthur Garfield Hays, Dudley Field Malone, an international divorce lawyer who had worked at the State Department, W.O. Thompson, who was Darrow's law partner, and F.B. McElwee.
The defense was also assisted by librarian and Biblical authority
Charles Francis Potter, who was a Modernist Unitarian preacher.
The prosecution team was led by Tom Stewart, district attorney for the 18th Circuit (and future United States Senator), and included, in addition to Herbert and Sue Hicks, Ben B. McKenzie and William Jennings Bryan.
The trial was covered by journalists from the South and around the world, including H. L. Mencken for The Baltimore Sun,
which was also paying part of the defense's expenses. It was Mencken
who provided the trial with its most colorful labels such as the "Monkey
Trial" of "the infidel Scopes". It was also the first United States
trial to be broadcast on national radio.
Proceedings
The
trial was front page news all over the country, including this
newspaper in Washington DC. Darrow was cited for contempt (at the time)
and details on the many scientists that weren't allowed to testify.
The ACLU had originally intended to oppose the Butler Act on the grounds that it violated the teacher's individual rights and academic freedom,
and was therefore unconstitutional. Principally because of Clarence
Darrow, this strategy changed as the trial progressed. The earliest
argument proposed by the defense once the trial had begun was that there
was actually no conflict between evolution and the creation account in
the Bible; later, this viewpoint would be called theistic evolution. In support of this claim, they brought in eight experts on evolution. But other than Dr. Maynard Metcalf, a zoologist from Johns Hopkins University,
the judge would not allow these experts to testify in person. Instead,
they were allowed to submit written statements so their evidence could
be used at the appeal. In response to this decision, Darrow made a
sarcastic comment to Judge Raulston (as he often did throughout the
trial) on how he had been agreeable only on the prosecution's
suggestions. Darrow apologized the next day, keeping himself from being
found in contempt of court.
The presiding judge, John T. Raulston, was accused of being biased
towards the prosecution and frequently clashed with Darrow. At the
outset of the trial, Raulston quoted Genesis
and the Butler Act. He also warned the jury not to judge the merit of
the law (which would become the focus of the trial) but on the violation
of the Act, which he called a 'high misdemeanor'. The jury foreman
himself was unconvinced of the merit of the Act but he acted, as did
most of the jury, on the instructions of the judge.
Bryan chastised evolution for teaching children that humans were
but one of 35,000 types of mammals and bemoaned the notion that human
beings were descended "Not even from American monkeys, but from old
world monkeys".
Darrow responded for the defense in a speech that was universally considered the oratorical climax of the trial.
Arousing fears of "inquisitions", Darrow argued that the Bible should
be preserved in the realm of theology and morality and not put into a
course of science. In his conclusion, Darrow declared that Bryan's "duel
to the death" against evolution should not be made one-sided by a court
ruling that took away the chief witnesses for the defense. Darrow
promised there would be no duel because "there is never a duel with the
truth." The courtroom went wild when Darrow finished; Scopes declared Darrow’s
speech to be the dramatic high point of the entire trial and insisted
that part of the reason Bryan wanted to go on the stand was to regain
some of his tarnished glory.
Examination of Bryan
On
the sixth day of the trial, the defense ran out of witnesses. The judge
declared that all the defense testimony on the Bible was irrelevant and
should not be presented to the jury (which had been excluded during the
defense). On the seventh day of the trial, the defense asked the judge
to call Bryan as a witness to question him on the Bible, as their own
experts had been rendered irrelevant; Darrow had planned this the day
before and called Bryan a "Bible expert". This move surprised those
present in the court, as Bryan was a counsel for the prosecution and
Bryan himself (according to a journalist reporting the trial) never made
a claim of being an expert, although he did tout his knowledge of the
Bible.
This testimony revolved around several questions regarding Biblical
stories and Bryan's beliefs (as shown below); this testimony culminated
in Bryan declaring that Darrow was using the court to "slur the Bible"
while Darrow replied that Bryan's statements on the Bible were
"foolish".
On the seventh day of the trial, Clarence Darrow took the unorthodox
step of calling William Jennings Bryan, counsel for the prosecution, to
the stand as a witness in an effort to demonstrate that belief in the
historicity of the Bible and its many accounts of miracles was
unreasonable. Bryan accepted, on the understanding that Darrow would in
turn submit to questioning by Bryan. Although Hays would claim in his
autobiography that the examination of Bryan was unplanned, Darrow spent
the night before in preparation. The scientists the defense had brought
to Dayton—and Charles Francis Potter, a modernist minister who had engaged in a series of public debates on evolution with the fundamentalist preacher John Roach Straton—prepared topics and questions for Darrow to address to Bryan on the witness stand. Kirtley Mather, chairman of the geology department at Harvard and also a devout Baptist, played Bryan and answered questions as he believed Bryan would. Raulston had adjourned court to the stand on the courthouse lawn,
ostensibly because he was "afraid of the building" with so many
spectators crammed into the courtroom, but probably because of the
stifling heat.
Adam and Eve
An area of questioning involved the book of Genesis, including questions about whether Eve was actually created from Adam's rib, where Cain got his wife, and how many people lived in Ancient Egypt.
Darrow used these examples to suggest that the stories of the Bible
could not be scientific and should not be used in teaching science with
Darrow telling Bryan "You insult every man of science and learning in
the world because he does not believe in your fool religion."
Bryan's declaration in response was "The reason I am answering is not
for the benefit of the superior court. It is to keep these gentlemen
from saying I was afraid to meet them and let them question me, and I
want the Christian world to know that any atheist, agnostic, unbeliever,
can question me anytime as to my belief in God, and I will answer him."
Stewart objected for the prosecution, demanding to know the legal
purpose of Darrow's questioning. Bryan, gauging the effect the session
was having, snapped that its purpose was "to cast ridicule on everybody
who believes in the Bible". Darrow, with equal vehemence, retorted "We
have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling
the education of the United States."
A few more questions followed in the charged open-air courtroom.
Darrow asked where Cain got his wife; Bryan answered that he would
"leave the agnostics to hunt for her". When Darrow addressed the issue of the temptation of Eve by the serpent,
Bryan insisted that the Bible be quoted verbatim rather than allowing
Darrow to paraphrase it in his own terms. However, after another angry
exchange, Judge Raulston banged his gavel, adjourning the court.
End of the trial
Darrow (left) and Bryan (right) during the trial
The confrontation between Bryan and Darrow lasted approximately two
hours on the afternoon of the seventh day of the trial. It is likely
that it would have continued the following morning but for Judge
Raulston's announcement that he considered the whole examination
irrelevant to the case and his decision that it should be "expunged"
from the record. Thus Bryan was denied the chance to cross-examine the
defense lawyers in return, although after the trial Bryan would
distribute nine questions to the press to bring out Darrow's "religious
attitude". The questions and Darrow's short answers were published in
newspapers the day after the trial ended, with The New York Times
characterizing Darrow as answering Bryan's questions "with his
agnostic's creed, 'I don't know,' except where he could deny them with
his belief in natural, immutable law".
After the defense's final attempt to present evidence was denied,
Darrow asked the judge to bring in the jury only to have them come to a
guilty verdict:
We claim that the defendant is not guilty, but as the
court has excluded any testimony, except as to the one issue as to
whether he taught that man descended from a lower order of animals, and
we cannot contradict that testimony, there is no logical thing to come
except that the jury find a verdict that we may carry to the higher
court, purely as a matter of proper procedure. We do not think it is
fair to the court or counsel on the other side to waste a lot of time
when we know this is the inevitable result and probably the best result
for the case.
After they were brought in, Darrow then addressed the jury:
We came down here to offer evidence in this case and the
court has held under the law that the evidence we had is not admissible,
so all we can do is to take an exception and carry it to a higher court
to see whether the evidence is admissible or not...
we cannot even explain to you that we think you should return a verdict
of not guilty. We do not see how you could. We do not ask it.
Darrow closed the case for the defense without a final summation.
Under Tennessee law, when the defense waived its right to make a closing
speech, the prosecution was also barred from summing up its case,
preventing Bryan from presenting his prepared summation.
Scopes never testified since there was never a factual issue as
to whether he had taught evolution. Scopes later admitted that, in
reality, he was unsure of whether he had taught evolution (another
reason the defense did not want him to testify), but the point was not
contested at the trial.
William Jennings Bryan's summation of the Scopes trial (distributed to reporters but not read in court):
Science is a magnificent force, but it is not a teacher
of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to
protect society from the misuse of the machine. It can also build
gigantic intellectual ships, but it constructs no moral rudders for the
control of storm-tossed human vessel. It not only fails to supply the
spiritual element needed but some of its unproven hypotheses rob the
ship of its compass and thus endanger its cargo. In war, science has
proven itself an evil genius; it has made war more terrible than it ever
was before. Man used to be content to slaughter his fellowmen on a
single plane, the earth's surface. Science has taught him to go down
into the water and shoot up from below and to go up into the clouds and
shoot down from above, thus making the battlefield three times as bloody
as it was before; but science does not teach brotherly love. Science
has made war so hellish that civilization was about to commit suicide;
and now we are told that newly discovered instruments of destruction
will make the cruelties of the late war seem trivial in comparison with
the cruelties of wars that may come in the future. If civilization is to
be saved from the wreckage threatened by intelligence not consecrated
by love, it must be saved by the moral code of the meek and lowly
Nazarene. His teachings, and His teachings alone, can solve the problems
that vex the heart and perplex the world.
After eight days of trial, it took the jury only nine minutes to
deliberate. Scopes was found guilty on July 21 and ordered by Raulston
to pay a $100 fine
(equivalent to $1,700 in 2022). Raulston imposed the fine before Scopes
was given an opportunity to say anything about why the court should not
impose punishment upon him and after Neal brought the error to the
judge's attention the defendant spoke for the first and only time in
court:
Your honor, I feel that I have been convicted of
violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in
the past, to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would
be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom—that is, to teach the
truth as guaranteed in our constitution, of personal and religious
freedom. I think the fine is unjust.
Bryan died suddenly five days after the trial's conclusion. The connection between the trial and his death is still debated by historians.
Appeal to the Supreme Court of Tennessee
Scopes's
lawyers appealed, challenging the conviction on several grounds. First,
they argued that the statute was overly vague because it prohibited the
teaching of "evolution", a very broad term. The court rejected that
argument, holding:
Evolution, like prohibition, is a broad term. In recent
bickering, however, evolution has been understood to mean the theory
which holds that man has developed from some pre-existing lower type.
This is the popular significance of evolution, just as the popular
significance of prohibition is prohibition of the traffic in
intoxicating liquors. It was in that sense that evolution was used in
this act. It is in this sense that the word will be used in this
opinion, unless the context otherwise indicates. It is only to the
theory of the evolution of man from a lower type that the act before us
was intended to apply, and much of the discussion we have heard is
beside this case.
Second, the lawyers argued that the statute violated Scopes' constitutional right to free speech
because it prohibited him from teaching evolution. The court rejected
this argument, holding that the state was permitted to regulate his
speech as an employee of the state:
He was an employee of the state of Tennessee or of a
municipal agency of the state. He was under contract with the state to
work in an institution of the state. He had no right or privilege to
serve the state except upon such terms as the state prescribed. His
liberty, his privilege, his immunity to teach and proclaim the theory of
evolution, elsewhere than in the service of the state, was in no wise
touched by this law.
Third, it was argued that the terms of the Butler Act violated the Tennessee State Constitution, which provided that "It shall be the duty of the General Assembly
in all future periods of this government, to cherish literature and
science." The argument was that the theory of the descent of man from a
lower order of animals was now established by the preponderance of
scientific thought, and that the prohibition of the teaching of such
theory was a violation of the legislative duty to cherish science. The
court rejected this argument, holding that the determination of what laws cherished science was an issue for the legislature, not the judiciary:
The courts cannot sit in judgment on such acts of the
Legislature or its agents and determine whether or not the omission or
addition of a particular course of study tends to cherish science.
Fourth, the defense lawyers argued that the statute violated the
provisions of the Tennessee Constitution that prohibited the
establishment of a state religion. The Religious Preference provisions
of the Tennessee Constitution (Section3 of ArticleI) stated, "no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious establishment or mode of worship".
Writing for the court two sittings and one year after receiving the appeal, Chief Justice Grafton Green
rejected this argument, holding that the Tennessee Religious Preference
clause was designed to prevent the establishment of a state religion as
had been the experience in England and Scotland at the writing of the Constitution, and held:
We are not able to see how the prohibition of teaching
the theory that man has descended from a lower order of animals gives
preference to any religious establishment or mode of worship. So far as
we know, there is no religious establishment or organized body that has
in its creed or confession of faith any article denying or affirming
such a theory. So far as we know, the denial or affirmation of such a
theory does not enter into any recognized mode of worship. Since this
cause has been pending in this court, we have been favored, in addition
to briefs of counsel and various amici curiae, with a multitude of
resolutions, addresses, and communications from scientific bodies,
religious factions, and individuals giving us the benefit of their views
upon the theory of evolution. Examination of these contributions
indicates that Protestants, Catholics, and Jews are divided among
themselves in their beliefs, and that there is no unanimity among the
members of any religious establishment as to this subject. Belief or
unbelief in the theory of evolution is no more a characteristic of any
religious establishment or mode of worship than is belief or unbelief in
the wisdom of the prohibition laws. It would appear that members of the
same churches quite generally disagree as to these things.
Further, the court held that while the statute forbade the teaching of evolution (as the court had defined it) it did not require teaching any other doctrine and thus did not benefit any one religious doctrine or sect over others.
Nevertheless, having found the statute to be constitutional, the court set aside the conviction on appeal because of a legal technicality:
the jury should have decided the fine, not the judge, since under the
state constitution, Tennessee judges could not at that time set fines
above $50, and the Butler Act specified a minimum fine of $100.
Justice Green added a totally unexpected recommendation:
The court is informed that the plaintiff in error is no
longer in the service of the state. We see nothing to be gained by
prolonging the life of this bizarre case. On the contrary, we think that
the peace and dignity of the state, which all criminal prosecutions are
brought to redress, will be the better conserved by the entry of a nolle prosequi herein. Such a course is suggested to the Attorney General.
Attorney General L. D. Smith immediately announced that he would not seek a retrial, while Scopes' lawyers offered angry comments on the stunning decision.
The trial revealed a growing chasm in American Christianity and two ways of finding truth, one "biblical" and one "evolutionist". Author David Goetz writes that the majority of Christians denounced evolution at the time.
Author Mark Edwards contests the conventional view that in the
wake of the Scopes trial, a humiliated fundamentalism retreated into the
political and cultural background, a viewpoint which is evidenced in
the film Inherit the Wind
(1960) as well as in the majority of contemporary historical accounts.
Rather, the cause of fundamentalism's retreat was the death of its
leader, Bryan. Most fundamentalists saw the trial as a victory rather
than a defeat, but Bryan's death soon after it created a leadership void
that no other fundamentalist leader could fill. Bryan, unlike the other
leaders, brought name recognition, respectability, and the ability to
forge a broad-based coalition of fundamentalist and mainline religious
groups which argued in defense of the anti-evolutionist position.
Adam Shapiro criticized the view that the Scopes trial was an essential and inevitable conflict between religion and science,
claiming that such a view was "self-justifying". Instead, Shapiro
emphasizes the fact that the Scopes trial was the result of particular
circumstances, such as politics postponing the adoption of new
textbooks.
Anti-evolution movement
The
trial escalated the political and legal conflict in which strict
creationists and scientists struggled over the teaching of evolution in
Arizona and California science classes. Before the Dayton trial only the
South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Kentucky legislatures had dealt with anti-evolution laws or riders to educational appropriations bills.
After Scopes was convicted, creationists throughout the United States sought similar anti-evolution laws for their states.
By 1927, there were 13 states, both in the North and in the South,
that had deliberated over some form of anti-evolution law. At least 41
bills or resolutions were introduced into the state legislatures, with
some states facing the issue repeatedly. Nearly all these efforts were
rejected, but Mississippi and Arkansas
did put anti-evolution laws on the books after the Scopes trial, laws
that would outlive the Butler Act (which survived until 1967).
In the Southwest, anti-evolution crusaders included ministers R.
S. Beal and Aubrey L. Moore in Arizona and members of the Creation
Research Society in California. They sought to ban evolution as a topic
for study in the schools or, failing that, to relegate it to the status
of unproven hypothesis perhaps taught alongside the biblical version of
creation. Educators, scientists, and other distinguished laymen favored
evolution. This struggle occurred later in the Southwest than elsewhere,
finally collapsing in the Sputnik era after 1957, when the national mood inspired increased trust for science in general and for evolution in particular.
The opponents of evolution made a transition from the anti-evolution crusade of the 1920s to the creation science
movement of the 1960s. Despite some similarities between these two
causes, the creation science movement represented a shift from overtly
religious to covertly religious objections to evolutionary
theory—sometimes described as a Wedge Strategy—raising
what it claimed was scientific evidence in support of a literal
interpretation of the Bible. Creation science also differed in terms of
popular leadership, rhetorical tone, and sectional focus. It lacked a
prestigious leader like Bryan, utilized pseudoscientific rather than
religious rhetoric, and was a product of California and Michigan instead of the South.
Teaching of science
The
Scopes trial had both short- and long-term effects in the teaching of
science in schools in the United States. Though often portrayed as
influencing public opinion against fundamentalism, the victory was not
complete.
Though the ACLU had taken on the trial as a cause, in the wake of
Scopes' conviction they were unable to find more volunteers to take on
the Butler law and, by 1932, had given up.
The anti-evolutionary legislation was not challenged again until 1965,
and in the meantime, William Jennings Bryan's cause was taken up by a
number of organizations, including the Bryan Bible League and the
Defenders of the Christian Faith.
The effects of the Scopes Trial on high school biology texts has
not been unanimously agreed by scholars. Of the most widely used
textbooks after the trial, only one included the word evolution in its index; the relevant page includes biblical quotations. Some scholars have accepted that this was the result of the Scopes Trial: for example Hunter, the author of the biology text which Scopes was on trial for teaching, revised the text by 1926 in response to the Scopes Trial Controversy.
However, George Gaylord Simpson challenged this notion as confusing
cause and effect, and instead posited that the trend of anti-evolution
movements and laws that provoked the Scopes Trial was also to blame for
the removal of evolution from biological texts, and that the trial
itself had little effect.
The fundamentalists' target slowly veered off evolution in the
mid-1930s. Miller and Grabiner suggest that as the anti-evolutionist
movement died out, biology textbooks began to include the previously
removed evolutionary theory.
This also corresponds to the emerging demand that science textbooks be
written by scientists rather than educators or education specialists.
This account of history has also been challenged. In Trying Biology
Robert Shapiro examines many of the eminent biology textbooks in the
1910–1920s, and finds that while they may have avoided the word evolution
to placate anti-evolutionists, the overall focus on the subject was not
greatly diminished, and the books were still implicitly evolution
based.
It has also been suggested that the narrative of evolution's being
removed from textbooks due to religious pressure, only to be reinstated
decades later, was an example of "Whig history" propagated by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, and that the shift in the ways biology textbooks discussed evolution can be attributed to other race and class based factors.
In 1958 the National Defense Education Act
was passed with the encouragement of many legislators who feared the
United States education system was falling behind that of the Soviet
Union. The act yielded textbooks, produced in cooperation with the
American Institute of Biological Sciences, which stressed the importance
of evolution as the unifying principle of biology.
The new educational regime was not unchallenged. The greatest backlash
was in Texas where attacks were launched in sermons and in the press.
Complaints were lodged with the State Textbook Commission. However, in
addition to federal support, a number of social trends had turned public
discussion in favor of evolution. These included increased interest in
improving public education, legal precedents separating religion and
public education, and continued urbanization in the South. This led to a
weakening of the backlash in Texas, as well as to the repeal of the
Butler Law in Tennessee in 1967.
Publicity
Edward J. Larson, a historian who won the Pulitzer Prize for History for his book Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion (2004), notes: "Like so many archetypal American events, the trial itself began as a publicity stunt." The press coverage of the "Monkey Trial" was overwhelming. The front pages of newspapers like The New York Times were dominated by the case for days. More than 200 newspaper reporters from all parts of the country and two from London were in Dayton. Twenty-two telegraphers sent out 165,000 words per day on the trial, over thousands of miles of telegraph wires hung for the purpose; more words were transmitted to Britain about the Scopes trial than for any previous American event. Trainedchimpanzees performed on the courthouse lawn. Chicago's WGN radio station broadcast the trial with announcer Quin Ryan via clear-channel
broadcasting first on-the-scene coverage of the criminal trial. Two
movie cameramen had their film flown out daily in a small plane from a
specially prepared airstrip.
H.L. Mencken's trial reports were heavily slanted against the prosecution and the jury, which were "unanimously hot for Genesis".
He mocked the town's inhabitants as "yokels" and "morons". He called
Bryan a "buffoon" and his speeches "theologic bilge". In contrast, he
called the defense "eloquent" and "magnificent". Even today, some
American creationists,
fighting in courts and state legislatures to demand that creationism be
taught on an equal footing with evolution in the schools, have claimed
that it was Mencken's trial reports in 1925 that turned public opinion
against creationism. The media's portrayal of Darrow's cross-examination of Bryan, and the play and movieInherit the Wind (1960), caused millions of Americans to ridicule religious-based opposition to the theory of evolution.
The trial also brought publicity to the town of Dayton, Tennessee, and was hatched as a publicity stunt. From The Salem Republican, June 11, 1925:
The whole matter has assumed the portion of Dayton and
her merchants endeavoring to secure a large amount of notoriety and
publicity with an open question as to whether Scopes is a party to the
plot or not.
In a $1 million restoration of the Rhea County Courthouse
in Dayton, completed in 1979, the second-floor courtroom was restored
to its appearance during the Scopes trial. A museum of trial events in
its basement contains such memorabilia as the microphone used to
broadcast the trial, trial records, photographs, and an audiovisual
history. Every July, local people re-enact key moments of the trial in
the courtroom. In front of the courthouse stands a commemorative plaque erected by the Tennessee Historical Commission, reading as follows:
2B 23 THE SCOPES TRIAL
Here, from July 10 to 21, 1925 John Thomas Scopes, a County High School teacher, was tried for teaching that a man descended from a lower order of animals in violation of a lately passed state law. William Jennings Bryan assisted the prosecution; Clarence Darrow, Arthur Garfield Hays, and Dudley Field Malone the defense. Scopes was convicted.
Cartoonist Rollin Kirby depicts fundamentalist education in Tennessee taken to an extreme
Anticipating that Scopes would be found guilty, the press fitted the defendant for martyrdom and created an onslaught of ridicule, and hosts of cartoonists added their own portrayals to the attack. For example:
Time magazine's initial coverage of the trial focused on Dayton as "the fantastic cross between a circus and a holy war".
Life magazine adorned its masthead with monkeys reading books and proclaimed "the whole matter is something to laugh about."
Both Literary Digest and the popular humor magazine Life (1890–1930) ran compilations of jokes and humorous observations garnered from newspapers around the country.
Overwhelmingly, the butt of these jokes was the prosecution and those
aligned with it: Bryan, the city of Dayton, the state of Tennessee, and
the entire South, as well as fundamentalist Christians and
anti-evolutionists. Rare exceptions were found in the Southern press,
where the fact that Darrow had saved Leopold and Loeb
from the death penalty continued to be a source of ugly humor. The most
widespread form of this ridicule was directed at the inhabitants of
Tennessee. Life described Tennessee as "not up to date in its attitude to such things as evolution". Time magazine related Bryan's arrival in town with the disparaging comment "The populace, Bryan's to a moron, yowled a welcome."
Attacks on Bryan were frequent and acidic: Life awarded
him its "Brass Medal of the Fourth Class" for having "successfully
demonstrated by the alchemy of ignorance hot air may be transmuted into
gold, and that the Bible is infallibly inspired except where it differs
with him on the question of wine, women, and wealth".
Vituperative attacks came from journalist H. L. Mencken, whose syndicated columns from Dayton for The Baltimore Sun drew vivid caricatures of the "backward" local populace, referring to the people of Rhea County as "Babbits",
"morons", "peasants", "hill-billies", "yaps", and "yokels". He
chastised the "degraded nonsense which country preachers are ramming and
hammering into yokel skulls". However, Mencken did enjoy certain
aspects of Dayton, writing
The town, I confess, greatly surprised me. I expected to
find a squalid Southern village, with darkies snoozing on the
horse-blocks, pigs rooting under the houses and the inhabitants full of
hookworm and malaria. What I found was a country town full of charm and
even beauty—a somewhat smallish but nevertheless very attractive
Westminster or Balair.
He described Rhea County as priding itself on a kind of tolerance or
what he called "lack of Christian heat", opposed to outside ideas but
without hating those who held them. He pointed out "The Klan has never got a foothold here, though it rages everywhere else in Tennessee."
Mencken attempted to perpetrate a hoax, distributing flyers for the
"Rev. Elmer Chubb", but the claims that Chubb would drink poison and
preach in lost languages were ignored as commonplace by the people of
Dayton, and only Commonweal magazine bit.
Mencken continued to attack Bryan, including in his withering obituary
of Bryan, "In Memoriam: W.J.B.", in which he charged Bryan with
"insincerity"—not for his religious beliefs but for the inconsistent and
contradictory positions he took on a number of political questions
during his career. Years later, Mencken did question whether dismissing Bryan "as a quack pure and unadulterated" was "really just". Mencken's columns made the Dayton citizens irate and drew general indignation from the Southern press.
After Raulston ruled against the admission of scientific testimony,
Mencken left Dayton, declaring in his last dispatch "All that remains of
the great cause of the State of Tennessee against the infidel Scopes is
the formal business of bumping off the defendant." Consequently, the journalist missed Darrow's cross-examination of Bryan on Monday.
Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee's play Inherit the Wind (1955), fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a means to discuss the then-contemporary McCarthy trials. It portrays Darrow and Bryan as the characters who are named Henry Drummond and Matthew Brady. In a note at the opening of the play, the playwrights state that it is not meant to be a historical account, and there are numerous instances where events were substantially altered or invented.Despite the disclaimer in the play's preface that the trial was its "genesis" but it is "not history", the play has largely been accepted as history by the public. (Lawrence and Lee later said that it was written in response to McCarthyism and was chiefly about intellectual freedom.)
Adaptations:
Inherit the Wind was made into a 1960 film directed by Stanley Kramer, with Spencer Tracy as Drummond and Fredric March
as Brady. Although there are numerous changes in the plot, they include
more of the actual events which are recorded in the trial transcript,
such as when Darrow implies that the court is prejudiced, being cited
for contempt of court for his comments and his subsequent statement of contrition that persuaded the judge to drop the charge.
Peter Goodchild's play, The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial
(1993), was based on original sources and transcripts of the Scopes
trial, because it was written with the goal of being historically
accurate. It was produced as part of L.A. Theatre Works' Relativity Series, which features science-themed plays and receives major funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which seeks "to enhance public understanding of science and technology in the modern world". According to Audiofile Magazine,
which pronounced this production the 2006 D.J.S. Winner of AudioFile
Earphones Award: "Because there are no recordings of the actual trial,
this production is certainly the next best thing."
The BBC broadcast The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial in 2009, in a radio version starring Neil Patrick Harris and Ed Asner.
Gale Johnson's play Inherit the Truth (1987) was based on the original transcripts of the case. Inherit the Truth was performed yearly during the Dayton Scopes Festival until it ended its run in 2009.
The play was written as a rebuttal of the 1955 play and the 1960 film,
which Dayton residents claim did not accurately depict either the trial
or William Jennings Bryan. In 2007 Bryan College
purchased the rights to the production and began work on a student film
version of the play, which was screened at that year's Scopes Festival.
The film Alleged (2010), a romantic drama which is set around the Scopes Trial, starring Brian Dennehy as Clarence Darrow and Fred Thompson as William Jennings Bryan, was released by Two Shoes Productions.
While the main storyline is fictional, all the courtroom scenes are
accurate according to the actual trial transcripts. Coincidentally,
Dennehy had played Matthew Harrison Brady, the fictionalized counterpart
of Bryan, in the 2007 Broadway revival of Inherit the Wind.
In 2018, the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts
presented a reading of a musical adaptation entitled "Nothing to See
Here", with book and music by Bryan Blaskie and book and lyrics by
Laurie Hochman.
Art
Gallery: Monkey Trial shows cartoons made in reaction to the trial.
Literature
Ronald Kidd's 2006 novel, Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial, set in summer 1925, in Dayton, Tennessee, is based on the Scopes Trial.
Music
A series of folk songs produced in reaction to the trial, from PBS' American Experience, includes:
"Bryan's Last Fight"
"Can't Make a Monkey of Me"
"Monkey Business"
"Monkey Out of Me"
"The John Scopes Trial"
"There Ain't No Bugs"
"Monkey Biz-Ness (Down in Tennessee)" by the International Novelty
Orchestra with Billy Murray is a 1925 comedy song about the Scopes
Monkey Trial.
Bruce Springsteen performed a song called "Part Man, Part Monkey" during his 1988 Tunnel of Love Express Tour, and recorded a version of it in 1990 that was first released as a 1992 B-side and was later released on the 1998 multi-volume Tracks
collection. The song references the Scopes trial ("They prosecuted some
poor sucker in these United States / For teaching that man descended
from the apes") but says that the trial could have been avoided by
merely looking at how men behave around women ("They coulda settled that
case without a fuss or fight / If they'd seen me chasing you, sugar,
through the jungle last night / They'da called in that jury and a one
two three, said / Part man, part monkey, definitely").
Non-fiction
It
was not until the 1960s that the Scopes trial began to be mentioned in
the history textbooks which were used in American high schools and
colleges, they usually portrayed it as an example of the conflict
between fundamentalists and modernists, and it was frequently mentioned in the sections of those same textbooks which also described the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the South.
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