Scopes Trial: A Brief History with Documents

The Scopes trial shocked America. Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes brought the question of teaching evolution in schools to every dinner table, and it remains an essential topic in any course on American History, the History of Education, and Religious History. This volume’s lively interpretative introduction provides an analysis of the trial and its impact on the moral fiber of the country and the educational system, and examines the race and gender issues that shook out of the debate. The editor has excerpted the crucial exchanges from the trial transcript itself, and includes these along with reactions to the trial, taken from newspaper reports, letters, and magazine articles. Telling political cartoons and evocative photographs add a colorful dimension to this collection, while a chronology of events, questions for consideration, and a bibliography provide strong pedagogical support.

The Scopes trial shocked America. Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes brought the question of teaching evolution in schools to every dinner table, and it remains an essential topic in any course on American History, the History of Education, and Religious History. This volume’s lively interpretative introduction provides an analysis of the trial and its impact on the moral fiber of the country and the educational system, and examines the race and gender issues that shook out of the debate. The editor has excerpted the crucial exchanges from the trial transcript itself, and includes these along with reactions to the trial, taken from newspaper reports, letters, and magazine articles. Telling political cartoons and evocative photographs add a colorful dimension to this collection, while a chronology of events, questions for consideration, and a bibliography provide strong pedagogical support.

Booknews

The moral decline of youth; the growing cleavages opened up by race, region, and urbanization; the struggle between majoritarianism and rights-based libertarianism; and the clash between older religious attitudes and modern secularism are among the cultural conflicts Moran (U. of Kansas) finds to have informed the now famous trial of a Tennessee high school teacher for teaching human evolution in July 1925. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Jeffrey P. Moran has taught at Harvard and Brown Universities and is currently a member of the history department at the University of Kansas. A specialist in modern American social and cultural history, he is the author of Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the 20th Century (2000) and a clutch of popular and scholarly articles. He is also a recipient of the Louis Pelzer Memorial Award.