John Thomas Scopes (August 3, 1900 – October 21, 1970) was a teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, who was charged on May 5, 1925, with violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of human evolution in Tennessee schools. He was trialed in a case known as the Scopes trial and was found guilty and fined $100 ().
Early life
Scopes was born in 1900 to Thomas Scopes and Mary Alva Brown, who lived on a farm in Paducah, Kentucky. John was their fifth child and only son. The Butler Act remained in effect until May 18, 1967, when it was repealed by the Tennessee legislature.
Scopes may have been innocent of the crime with which his name is associated. After the trial, he admitted to reporter William Kinsey Hutchinson "I didn't violate the law," explaining that he had skipped the evolution lesson and that his lawyers had coached his students to testify; the Dayton businessmen had assumed that he had violated the law. Hutchinson did not file his story until after the Scopes appeal was decided in 1927.
In 1955, the trial was fictionalized as a play titled Inherit The Wind featuring Paul Muni as a character based on Clarence Darrow and Ed Begley as a character based on William Jennings Bryan. In 1960, a movie version of the play featured Spencer Tracy as the Darrow character and Fredric March as the Bryan character.
Life after the trial
thumb|left|c. 1925.
The results of the Scopes Trial affected Scopes professionally and personally. His public image was mocked by animation, cartoons and other media during the succeeding years. Scopes himself largely shunned publicity.
During September 1925, he enrolled in the graduate school of the University of Chicago to finish his studies of geology (where he earned a master's degree). Evidence of harassment by the press was mentioned by Frank Thorne: "You may be interested to know that Mr. John T. Scopes of anti-evolution trial fame expects to take up the study of geology as a graduate student of Chicago this fall…Please do what you can to protect him from the importunities of Chicago reporters….He is a modest and unassuming young chap, and has been subjected to a great deal more limelight than he likes." A year later, the Tennessee Supreme Court decision of 1926 prompted the press to pursue Scopes again. During this time, he wrote to Thorne, "I am tired of fooling with them". It is evident that the media's attention was affecting Scopes emotionally.
After his graduation, he was "barred" from career opportunities in Tennessee. He took a job as a field engineer with Gulf Oil in Venezuela.
Having failed in education, Scopes attempted to build a political career and he began an unsuccessful bid as a candidate of the Socialist Party for the U.S. House of Representatives for Kentucky's only at-large congressional campaign, during 1932. Eventually Scopes worked as an oil expert for the United Production Corporation, later known as the United Gas Corporation. There, he first worked in Beeville, Texas, then, he worked in the company's Houston office until 1940, and later, he worked in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he stayed until his death. United Gas merged into what was Pennzoil during 1968.
Scopes attended the 1960 premiere of Inherit The Wind and he also participated in the celebration of John T. Scopes Day.
Scopes and the story of his trial were featured in an episode of the television game show To Tell The Truth on October 10, 1960.
In June 1967, Scopes published Center of the Storm: Memoirs of John T. Scopes. Together they had two sons.
See also
- Mildred Seydell
References
Sources
Further reading
Books
Web