John T. Scopes: The Man Behind the 1925 Evolution Trial

John Thomas Scopes (1900–1970) was a Tennessee high school teacher who became the defendant in the landmark 1925 trial over teaching human evolution under the state’s Butler Act. The Scopes trial saw Clarence Darrow defend Scopes while William Jennings Bryan led the prosecution. Scopes was fined $100, a verdict later overturned on a technicality. The Butler Act remained law until its repeal in 1967. After the trial, Scopes earned a master’s in geology at the University of Chicago and worked in the oil industry. His memoirs inspired the play and film Inherit the Wind, though both altered many real events. Scopes married Mildred Elizabeth Walker in 1930 and had two sons. He died of cancer in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1970 at age 70.

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