The John Scopes Trial

The early 1920's found social patterns in chaos. Traditionalists, the older Victorians, worried that everything valuable was ending. Younger modernists no longer asked whether society would approve of their behavior, only whether their behavior met the approval of their intellect. Intellectual experimentation flourished. Americans danced to the sound of the Jazz Age, showed their contempt for alcoholic prohibition, debated abstract art and Freudian theories. In a response to the new social patterns set in motion …

…for this case. Dudley Field Malone and Arthur Garfield Hays, two other well-know attorneys, would give assistance. Three other lawyers represented Scopes, including a Tennessee law professor John R. Neal, who was placed in charge of the case. The trial started on Friday, July 10 and ended on Tuesday July 21. The trail on lasted for 8 non-continuous Day. On the 8th day the jury came to a final decision of guilty. They fined Scopes one hundred dollars.