Scopes Monkey Trial

In July 1925, Dayton, Tennessee received national attention by staging the first live radio broadcast of a trial that would determine if high school teacher John T. Scopes was guilty of violating the Butler act, which had made it illegal to teach evolution in state-funded schools.

The locals’ purpose was to bring attention and publicity to their small town; the lawyers’ purpose was to eventually determine whether states could constitutionally exclude evolution from the curriculum.

A group of scientists was assembled in Dayton to testify for the defense.

“Two experts had connections to the University of Virginia. Biology professor William Allison Kepner (1875-1971) was teaching in the summer session but willingly rearranged his classes to make himself available. Geologist Wilbur Armistead Nelson (1889-1969) was scheduled to join the Virginia faculty and become State Geologist of Virginia on September 1, 1925. Nelson had been State Geologist of Tennessee since 1918, was past president of the Tennessee Academy of Sciences, and was locally known as president of the Monteagle Sunday School Assembly, an interdenominational Chautauqua and summer resort established in the 1880s on the Cumberland Plateau above Dayton.”

Kepner would become the 11th President of the Virginia Academy of Science, 1933-34.

Scopes was found guilty of violating the Butler act and fined $100. The long process of determining the larger issue had begun, culminating in the 1968 supreme court ruling that invalidated an Arkansas statute prohibiting the teaching of evolution (Epperson vs. Arkansas).

First page of Wilbur A. Nelson testimony

William Allison Kepner (1875-1971) was a professor of biology at the University of Virginia. He had been invited by the defense to appear as an expert witness at the 1925 Scopes anti-evolution trial. Kepner was not allowed to testify on the stand but his statement appeared in the court record. Photograph by Frank Thone.

Wilbur Armistead Nelson (1889-1969) was a professor of geology at the University of Virginia and that state's official geologist.