Cultural Revolution Of The 1920s

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The 1920's were times of cultural revolution. The times were changing in many different ways. Whenever the times change, there is a clash between the "old" and the "new" generations. The 1920's were no exception. In Dayton, Tennessee, 1925, a high school biology teacher was arrested. He was arrested because he taught the theory of evolution. The teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of having violated the Butler Act. This was a Tennessee law that forbade the teaching of the theory of evolution in public schools. The Tennessee legislature felt that teaching evolution was wrong because it contradicted the creation theory of the Bible. The Scopes trial received worldwide publicity. The press nicknamed it the Monkey Trial because, people believed that the theory of evolution meant that humans were descended from monkeys. Clarence Darrow was the defense lawyer. Former U.S. secretary of state William Jennings Bryan was the prosecutor. The defense argued that the Butler Act was unconstitutional. They did not deny that Scopes had broken the law. He was convicted and fined $100. Darrow was quoted as saying, "Scopes isn't on trial, civilization is on trial." The world was changing and scientific advances made it harder to fully accept the Bible's interpretation of creation. The older generation seemed set in their ways. It would seem that a science was on trial defending itself against traditional beliefs. The Red Scare was the result of wartime tensions....

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