...The Scopes Trial By：Wang Congcong The Scopes Trial (Monkey Trial) and its aftermath caused our nation to closely examine the ties between religion and science. The Scopes Trial was the case of a high school biology teacher John Scopes against the state law against teaching Evolution in classroom. The case drew a lot of public attention. Even though the Scopes trial failed, succeeded in getting people to ask themselves, " what should I believe". In 1859, Charles Darwin released his work" Origin of the Species" old man of human are monkeys. Major people are fundamentalist, support the Bible, they believe God created human the story of Garden of Eden. Darwin''s theory subverted the story from Bible.So his speech had problems with church of England, Evolution is a new thing for the whole society, most people thought it 's a joke, and few people really considered became whose try to defend Darwin's theory and spread the ideas of Evolution. In the late days, Darwin's speak of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection became central to modern evolutionary theory, now concept of the life sciences. In 1925, Tennessee passed a law, the Butler Act, that make illegal to teach Darwin's theory of evolution in public school. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) thought the law violated people's rights. " The 1st Amendment to the constitution protects that separation when it says. Congress shall make no...
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...The Scopes “Monkey” Trial was an American legal case in 1925 which involved a 24-year old high school teacher named John Thomas Scopes who was prosecuted for teaching the theory of evolution. The trial took place in Dayton, Tennessee on July 25th 1995. Scopes was accused of violating the Tennessee’s Butler Act by teaching Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. The Butler Act forbids the teaching of theory that goes against the biblical story of Creationism. Scopes was found guilty and was charged a fine of $100. In 1925, the Tennessee legislature passed the Butler Act which prohibits the teaching of the theory of evolution in all the universities, normal and all other public school in Tennessee. Any teacher who fails to abide the law would be fined not less than a $100 or more than $500. Other southern states followed suit. The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) offered to defend the teaching of evolution. Scopes agreed to purposefully incriminate himself so the ACLU could challenge the Butler’s Act....
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...US History Since 1877 Critical Essay #1 Dr. Bachhofer Scopes Monkey Trial Religious controversy has been around from the birth of this country and beyond. This country was founded by people, at least in part, trying to get religious freedom from Europe. People, even today in modern society, want the right to believe whatever they want and not have someone else’s beliefs shoved down their throats or the throats of their children. This need for religious freedom and the age old controversy of religious battles sparked a huge trial in the mid 1920’s famously known as the “Monkey Trial”. By 1921, Protestantism split up into two distinct groups. One of these groups was known as the modernists and the other was known as the fundamentalists. Both groups were caught up in a fight with each other for the countries attention. Like any fight over something important, both groups thought they were right. The Modernists were made up primarily of urban, middle-class people. Modernists were attempting to change religion around to fit their society that was based around science mainly. They believed that there was a chance that Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory had some merit. Above all else the rejected the idea that everything in the bible was 100% accurate. They left the door open for alternate interpretations of the bible, something that the fundamentalists despised. The fundamentalists (also known as the “defenders”) on the other hand consisted mostly of rural farmers...
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...Famous American Trials AndraLeigh Brown Date Due 2/24/14 The Salem Witch Trials The salem witch trials of 1692 were a very dark timw in American history. More than 200 people were accused of witchcraft practice and over 19 people were killed during this chaos. Salem, Massachusetts wasn’t alone in the witch hunt. A wave of trials swept Europe for nearly 300 years. This hysteria first began in January of 1692 when a group of young girls fell ill after playing a fortune telling game. They began behaving strangely. They later came known as the “afflicted girls”. The first of the girls to began experiencing symptoms was Betty Parris, fallowed by Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam, Mary Lewis. Shortly after Elizabeth Hubbard, Susannah Sheldon, Mary Warren and Elizabeth Booth all started having the same symptoms. In February Samuel Parris called for a doctor to exam the girls. The doctor was unable ti find anything wrong with the girls and suggested they may be bewitched. Two of the girls named the women they thought were bewitching them. These women were Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn and a slave woman named Tituba who worked for the Parris family. On March 1st these three women were arrested and examined. During this Tituba confessed that her and the other two women had been approached by Satan and they all agreed to do his bidding as witches. In April and May more Men and women were accused this...
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...Chapter 21: Scopes Monkey Trial The scopes monkey trial occurred because religious fundamentalists, who believed that God created life, believed that the theory of evolution was heretic. In early in 1925 state legislature of Tennessee passed a law forbidding public school teachers to teach the theory of evolution instead of teaching the story of Adam and Eve. John Scopes was a high school teacher in Dayton Tennessee who was a modernist, meaning that he believed in social sciences and evolution. In 1925 Scopes volunteered to serve in a test case and was arrested for teaching evolution in school. Scopes trial that summer became a headline event and though he won the trial, fundamentalism remained popular. 2nd Kkk In 1915, William J. Simmons,...
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...between forces of tradition and modernity. This tension was represented in whole by the Scopes Trial. The Scopes Trial was a court case where the Attorney General of Tennessee charged a high school biology teacher named John Scopes for going against the law of not being able to teach Darwin’s theory of evolution in school. Darwin’s theory of evolution stated that complex forms of life, like human beings, developed from simpler forms of life. Darwin’s modern theory clashed heavily with the fundamentalist, or traditionalist, view in the Bible, where God creates humans. The law of not being able to teach Darwinism in public schools was passed in 1925 by the state of Tennessee. The ACLU, or American...
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...“Inherit the Wind” was a film that was originally released in 1960, however it has been remade several times since that time. It was directed by Stanley Kramer and written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. It is based on the true story of John “Monkey” Scope’s trial of being convicted of teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in a high school, even though it was illegal in the state of Tennessee. The story is told in Tennessee around the time of 1925. The film shows issues between cultures about how some believe in evolution and some believe in the Church, however, the major issue is the one on how Americans can think for themselves. I feel the movie depicted the issues in neither a negative nor a positive manner. I think it was more of a historical film than a film that takes a side on either side of the issue. It is negative in the fact that the way it was handled and the laws at the time thoroughly showed that it was illegal. At the time, teaching the theory of evolution was illegal in high school. The thought of children learning of how humans came to be outside of what the bible described was blasphemy. The people showing hatred towards Bertram Cates, the name of the character in the film that portrayed Scope, was a prime example of the way people viewed those who thought this type of way. I feel that it depicted society in a negative manner more than the situation itself. In the film, you heard citizens singing for the defendant and his attorney for their...
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...Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was one of the most thoroughgoing scientific proposals in the galaxy. This theory presents that the living organisms found on the Earth today developed from simpler organisms in an extended, gradual process of natural selection. Darwin’s theory caused substantial controversy because it challenged existing thoughts about the origins of humankind, such as the formation story told in the book of Genesis in the Bible. This controversy split America, which was going through a significant social change during the phase, in which Darwin’s theories became universal. Inherit the Wind outlines the 1925 trial, Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, often referred to as the “Scopes Monkey Trial.” In a compact city called Hillsboro, Bertram Cates sits behind bars for teaching his class about Darwin’s theory. I do not believe teachers should be able to teach what they want in classrooms. If the educators instruct on what is taught, then lack of continuity across the country with regard to education. Students in different states may end up learning completely different objectives. Part of the advantage of the United States is alike opportunity for all citizens. Therefore, I believe states should decide what is taught. Rachel Brown, the daughter of the town’s clergyman, also a teacher, urges Cates to plead guilty. Cates is edgy when...
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...parties, flappers, and roaring jazz music. Although the decade seems like a collection of rowdy social festivities, grander complications lied at the surface. Author and Harvard American History professor, Joshua Zeitz underlines the conjuncture between innovation and tradition in his essay The Roaring Twenties. Although major religious conflicts erupted, giving the conservatives a win, the 1920’s were a decade of liberalism because of backlash from government control and advancements in media A major disagreement between church and education was the John Scopes trial (aka the monkey trial.) In 1925, the Butler Act was passed to end the teaching of anything that goes against biblical teachings. That same year, John Scopes was challenged by peers to violate the anti-evolution law and teach Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution to his class. A Duke University Article, by Christopher Armstrong and Grant Wacker, entitled The Scopes Trial states that “Resistance grew especially acute when such conservatives saw their sons and daughters going off to college and, faced with teachings that contradicted their parents' beliefs, seemed to lose their faith entirely.” This reveals the parent’s conservative fears of a radically different America where there would be diversity amongst religions. Adding on to conservative victory, Zeitz claims that the conservatives were nowhere near close to being beat. Zeits states in his essay that after their court victory,...
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...The Scopes Monkey trial of 1925 is considered a success for the teaching of biology in the United States. Although John T. Scopes was found guilty and the christian plantiffs won, the spokemen for the case were labeled as silly in their explaination of concepts in the book of Genesis, such as Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark. Even after the violation of the Tennessee law, other states were less willing to propsing laws similar to the Butler Act (Cornish,2007,para.3). The trial was just the beginning of a century-long war between creationalists and scientists. The conflict also turns into a christian vs atheist debate, due to the overwelming amount of atheists who support the theory of evolution. After reading Randy Moore's article, I was surprised by the number of Americans who want creationalism to be incooperated in a biology curriculum. Based on statistics provided by Randy Moore, while half the U.S. Population support...
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...Inherit the Wind is an excellent film created after the play of the same name based on the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. While based on an actual court case and displaying identical ideas throughout the film, Inherit the Wind is a completely fictional story. It begins with a school teacher named Bert Cates, having been arrested for teaching evolution to his sophomore science class. Bert was not at all sorry for defying the law prohibiting that sort of teaching. He was standing by his idea that any man should have the right to think what they want, and never actually dispelling any ideas of Christian creation or claiming evolution to be fact, but theory. Then Rachel Brown, Bert’s girlfriend and the daughter of Reverend Brown visits Bert in jail. Rachel is greatly conflicted between the opposing beliefs of her boyfriend and her father, who happens to be a known spiritual leader in the town of Hillsboro where the story takes place. Rachel knew her father never favored Bert and once he hears about the teacher filling students’ ears with what he considers “Atheistic filth”, she would be torn between supporting either of the men she loved. Rachel preemptively tried to convince Bert to plead guilty to no avail. Soon after, to Bert’s surprise, word gets around that Matthew Harrison Brady, three-time presidential candidate, and leader of the crusade against evolution, has volunteered to be the prosecuting attorney against him. Here the film starts to paint a picture of the ensuing...
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...On January 13, 1910, tenor Enrico Caruso prepared to perform an entirely new activity: sing opera over the airwaves, broadcasting his voice from the Metropolitan Opera House to locations throughout New York City. Inventor Lee deForest had suspended microphones above the Opera House stage and in the wings and set up a transmitter and antenna. A flip of a switch magically sent forth sound. The evening would usher out an old era—one of dot-dash telegraphs, of evening newspapers, of silent films, and of soap box corner announcements. In its place, radio communications would provide instant, long-distance wireless communication. In 2009, America celebrated the 40th anniversary of the creation of National Public Radio; thanks to deForest, 2010 marks the centennial of the true birth of the era of public broadcasting. Wireless telephony had been several decades in the making. European experimenters (including Heinrich Hertz, for whom the radio frequency unit hertz is named) had contributed to the field in the late 1800s by experimenting with electromagnetic waves. In the 1890s, Guglielmo Marconi invented the vertical antenna, transmitting signals of ever-increasing distance; by 1901, he could send messages from England across the Atlantic Ocean to Newfoundland. Thanks in part to these advances, in December 1906, Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden was able to arrange a holiday broadcast to operators off the Atlantic seaboard. His singing, violin playing and biblical verse reading...
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...Chapter 21: The Roaring Life of the 1920s Section 1: Changing Ways of Life I. Rural and Urban Differences A. Between 1922 and 1929, migration to the cities accelerated, with nearly 2 million people leaving farms and towns each year (small town values change) 1. City dwellers judged one another by their accomplishments more often than their background a. City dwellers tolerated drinking, gambling, and casual dating (shocking and sinful in small towns) 2. Cities could be impersonal and frightening b. Life was fast paced and neighbors were not as neighborly B. Prohibition: the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages were legally prohibited 3. 18th Amendment: ratified Jan, 1919 and repealed by the 21st Amendment in Dec, 1933 C. Positive Opinions/Results of Prohibition: 4. Progressives wanted it banned to stop family violence, crime, and poverty c. Support for prohibition was found in the rural native-Protestant dominated West and South d. The church-affiliated Anti-Saloon League led the drive to pass Prohibition e. Woman’s Christian Temperance Union considered drinking a sin 5. WW I reformers advocated prohibition as a war measure f. People were concerned that many German Americans owned many of the brewers g. Drinking reduced the efficiency of soldiers and workers 6. Learned we must...
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...and partying; and lived life in a much slower, happier manner. The traditional citizen also had a strong affection for family life. The modern citizen dwelled in urban areas such as New York or Boston; had very little attachment to religion; was generally on the wealthier side of economic status; often partied, drank, smoked; and lived life in a very fast paced manner. The KKK experienced tremendous growth in rural communities; by 1925 the Klan boasted 5 million members. African Americans were deemed the “enemy” of the rural way of life. On the urban side, however, flappers began to emerge. Going completely against the traditional women’s values, flappers regularly attended bars and dressed much more revealing than they used to. Religion also played a huge part in the divide; as new science was being developed many of the rural religious beliefs were being challenged. This outraged the rural community, an example of this being William Jennings Bryan and his well reinforced fight against Darwin’s teachings. Another example being the Scopes Monkey trial, as it was one of the most popular supreme court cases of the 20th Century, and science was forced to accept defeat. Immigration was another issue in America. Immigration in the 1920s was still very high with around 6,000,000 immigrants coming to the US between 1921 and 1930. And as immigration rates had remained relatively constant at a high rate for the majority of the 20th Century, hatred and prejudice towards immigrants remained...
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...Written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, the play Inherit the Wind is a fictitious spin off of the historical Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, which debated the concept of evolutionism vs. creationism and, in general, a person’s right to think. Brady and Drummond, two lawyers appointed to Bertram Cates’ trial are both powerful characters, different yet they portray many similarities through their behaviour. Demonstrated through various personal flaws, strengths, and their own particular relationships with religion, both contrasting characters function as an important mechanism by which the play’s predominate theme of the importance of freedom of thought are emphasized. The ability to think, or exercise free thought is, philosophically, the foundation of our existence. You can not become all that God created you to be until you embrace your identity — the unmistakably unique and flawed you that God intentionally made for a purpose. The high and almighty Brady was even flawed, he showed a great deal of love towards the public. Before the time of radio and television, if he controlled the media, he controlled the masses. He became who the community wanted to hear, dependant of the flock of followers he had created behind him. Lavished with all their praise and glory Brady built up an ample amount of confidence in himself. The power he had gained made him feel secure and he was always seeking for more, this becomes evident when he runs for president in three consecutive elections...
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