Traditionalism and Modernism The Clash Between

The Clash BetweenTraditionalism and ModernismHow did social, economic, and religious tensions divide Americansduring the Roaring Twenties?

Introduction

The two magazine coversshown at the end of thesection and above capturethe tension betweentraditionalism andmodernism during the 1920s.The Leslie’s IllustratedWeekly Newspaper appealedto traditionalists, featuringnostalgic images rooted insmall-town America.Contrarily, Life enticedmodernists with images ofstylish, trendy Americans.

Born in New York City in 1894, Norman Rockwell was a talented artist

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2019 Teachers' Curriculum Institute Level: A

who studied at a number of the city’s art schools. For many youngpainters in the 1920s, it was natural to derive inspiration from the newand strange sights the city offered, but Rockwell’s works didn’t featureNew York. Instead, they depicted more traditional American scenes,reflecting life on farms and in small towns.

The Saturday Evening Post, one of the country’s most popular weeklymagazines, featured Rockwell’s charming pictures on its coversbeginning in 1916. By 1925, Rockwell was nationally famous. “Withoutthinking too much about it in specific terms,” Rockwell said of his work,“I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who mightnot have noticed.”

Although rural life was changing in this period, most of the trends thatshaped the roaring 1920s emerged in the nation’s cities. Rockwell’spaintings appealed to people longing for the reassurance of the simplelife. Some people who lived in rural areas did not approve of thechanges they had witnessed since the end of World War I. These peoplewere traditionalists, or those who had deep respect for long-heldcultural and religious values, since they believed these values wereanchors maintaining order and stability in society.

For other Americans, particularly those in urban areas, there was noreturning to the old ways. These Americans were modernists, orpeople who embraced new ideas, styles, and social trends. They viewedtraditional values as chains that restricted both individual freedom andthe pursuit of happiness.

American society became deeply divided as a result of the clashbetween traditionalists and modernists in the 1920s. Rural dwellersfaced off against urbanites. Defenders of traditional morality bemoanedthe behavior of “flaming youth.” Teetotalers opposed drinkers.Established religion challenged modern science. These battlescontributed to a greater “culture war” that still exists today.


Level: A 2019 Teachers' Curriculum Institute

“Fact and Fiction,” featured on the cover of Leslie’s Illustrated WeeklyNewspaper in 1917, was painted by Norman Rockwell, an artist whogained national acclaim for his charming depictions of American life.



After the horrors of WorldWar I, many Americanswanted to revel in fun.Performances by popularentertainment groups likeUncle Sam’s Follies, shownabove, offered freedom fromstrict social etiquette. Atthese shows, people coulddress in the newest fashions,dance the latest dances,smoke, and drink, despiteprohibition.

1. The Growing Traditionalist-Modernist DivideWhen the doughboys began to return from France at the war’s end, thetitle of a popular song addressed a troubling question for many ruralfamilies: “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘em Down on the Farm (After They’veSeen Paree?)” After experiencing bright city lights, many returningsoldiers decided to leave their small hometowns behind. The 1920census revealed a startling statistic: for the first time ever, the U.S.population was more than 50 percent urban—a shift that set the stagefor the growing divide between traditionalists and modernists.

Urban Attractions: Economic Opportunity and PersonalFreedom Some 19 million people would move from farms to citiesduring the 1920s, largely in search of economic opportunities. Urban



areas, with their factories and office buildings, were hubs of economicgrowth. As the economy boomed, the demand for workers increased,and wages rose as well. Between 1920 and 1929, the average percapita income rose 37 percent. Meanwhile, the consumer priceindex, or the measure of the cost of basic necessities such as food andhousing, remained steady, so urban wage earners saw their standard ofliving improve.

In the 1920s, a boomingeconomy and high wageslured workers to urban areassuch as New York City. Citiesoffered people steady jobsand increased freedom toexplore new ways of thinkingand living. Rural communitiesoften viewed urbanites’newfound culture and moralswith suspicion.

Cities also offered the freedom to explore new ways of thinking andliving. City dwellers could meet people from different cultures, go tomovies, visit museums, and attend concerts. They could buy and readan endless variety of magazines and newspapers, and could drink,gamble, or go on casual dates without being judged as immoral.



Rural Problems: Falling Crop Prices and Failing Farms Thepersonal freedoms people experienced in cities stood in stark contrastto stricter small-town life. In rural areas, most people lived in quietcommunities and looked out for one another. They often regarded newideas and ways of behaving with suspicion.

Rural communities faced a host of problems during the 1920s, inaddition to losing their younger generations to cities. Farmersprospered during the war, producing food crops for the Allies and thehome front. Enterprising farmers took out loans to purchase newmachines or additional land, in hopes of increasing their output andprofits. After the war, crop prices and European demand for U.S. farmproducts dropped sharply. With their incomes shrinking, numerousfarmers were unable to repay their loans. In the early 1920s alone,hundreds of thousands of farmers lost their farms. For the rest of thedecade, farmers’ share of the national income dropped steadily, and by1929, per capita income for farmers was less than half the nationalaverage.



During the postwar recession,all American workers sawtheir incomes significantlydecrease. Although industrialworkers’ incomes eventuallyrecovered, farm workers’ didnot. Congress passedagriculture-friendly legislationto assist farmers, but it waseventually vetoed.

Congressmen from rural states attempted to reverse this downwardslide by passing farm-friendly legislation. The most ambitious of thesemeasures, the McNary-Haugen Bill, was first introduced in 1924, callingon the federal government to raise the price of some farm products byselling surplus crops overseas. Although Congress passed the bill twice,in 1927 and 1928, President Calvin Coolidge vetoed it both times. Thepresident was a strong opponent of the government’s interference inmarkets, dismissing the McNary-Haugen Bill as “preposterous.”

Changing Values Lead to Mutual Resentment The divide



between urban modernists and rural traditionalists was not onlyeconomic, as modernists generally viewed rural Americans as sociallyunadvanced. Sinclair Lewis, the first American writer to win the NobelPrize for Literature, mocked small-town values. In one of his novels, hedescribed the residents of a small Midwestern town as,

a savorless people, gulping tasteless food, and sittingafterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking-chairsprickly with inane decorations, listening to mechanicalmusic, saying mechanical things about the excellence ofFord automobiles, and viewing themselves as the greatestrace in the world.

—Sinclair Lewis, Main Street, 1920

Not surprisingly, rural traditionalists resented these attacks on theirbehavior and values. They believed they were defending the virtues ofAmerican life, and viewed city culture as money-grubbing, materialistic,and immoral. At the same time, many rural people could not help butenvy the comforts and excitement city life seemed to offer.

Defenders of traditional values often cited their faith and the Bible tosupport their struggle against modernism. As a result, the 1920s saw arise in religious fundamentalism—the idea that religious texts andbeliefs should be taken literally and treated as the authority onappropriate behavior.

Billy Sunday, a former major league baseball player, emerged asAmerica’s most prominent fundamentalist preacher. His dramaticpreaching style drew huge crowds, and he was said to have preached tomore than 100 million people in his lifetime. Sunday’s largest followingwas located in rural areas, including the South. As Sunday onceremarked, “There is ten times more respect for God and the Bible andthe Christian religion in the South than in any other part of the UnitedStates.”

Still, times were changing. A growing number of young modernistsrejected long-accepted American values. Rural areas were losingresidents to the cities, and agriculture was no longer the backbone ofthe American economy. With mass media advancements, even ruralpeople were being exposed to new ideas, music, and social values.



In the 1920s, youngAmericans were enamored byvarious fads, including pole-sitting, dance marathons,beauty contests, crosswordpuzzles, and a game calledmah-jongg. The majority ofthese fads were short-lived.Here, a daredevil completesa crossword puzzle whilesuspended from a building.

2. Generations Clash over theNew Youth CultureBefore World War I, a young man interested in courting a young woman



would first have to visit her at home and meet her parents. If thingswent well at this initial meeting, the boy would visit again, and if heinvited the girl to a dance or concert, an older adult would chaperone.Eventually, the girl’s parents might trust the young couple enough toallow them to sit by themselves on the front porch. In traditionalfamilies, these courtship patterns continued after the war. But in moremodern households, courtship changed dramatically, often confusingand upsetting older generations. Courtship customs were one way theolder and younger generations clashed in the 1920s.

The Youth Perspective: The Old Ways Are Repressive Increasingdemand for public education in the 1920s led to a majority of teenagersattending high school for the first time in U.S. history. Collegeenrollment expanded as well. As young people spent more time thanpreviously outside the home or workplace, a new youth cultureemerged. It revolved around school, clubs, sports, music, dances,dating, movies, and trendy fads.

For the most part, the fads young people followed were ephemeral. Inone fad, young couples entered marathon dance competitions, wherethe last couple left standing after many hours of dancing won a prize.Flagpole sitting, in which participants spent days perched atopflagpoles, was another short-lived fad. One fad from the 1920s thatremains popular today is the crossword puzzle.

The most daring young women broke with tradition by becoming“flappers.” They colored their hair, cutting it short, and their skimpydresses— worn without restrictive corsets—barely covered their knees.They rolled their stockings below their knees, and sported unfastenedrain boots that flapped around their ankles. Flappers also wore makeup,which previously had been associated with “loose,” or immoral women.Draped in beads and bracelets and carrying cigarette holders, theywent to jazz clubs and danced the night away. In a magazine articlediscussing flappers, Zelda Fitzgerald wrote,

She flirted because it was fun to flirt and wore a one-piecebathing suit because she had a good figure, she coveredher face with paint and powder because she didn’t need itand she refused to be bored because she wasn’t boring . . .Mothers disapproved of their sons taking the Flapper todances, to teas, to swim and most of all to heart.

—Zelda Fitzgerald, “Eulogy on the Flapper,” 1922

Modern young couples traded old-fashioned courtship for dating.



Whereas courtship was intended to lead to marriage, the purpose ofdating was to have fun away from parents’ prying eyes. Sedate teaparties and chaperoned dances gave way to unsupervised parties.

Many young people freely ignored the worries of their elders, whofretted about the younger generation’s “wild” ways. After witnessingthe war’s waste of life, American youth determined that the adults whohad ordered young men into battle were not worthy of their respect. Asone young person said, “The older generation had certainly pretty wellruined this world before passing it on to us.”

In this 1922 photograph, aWashington, D.C., policemanverifies that bathing suits aresituated no higher than sixinches above women’sknees. Traditionalists inmany communities passedlaws designed to preventwomen from appearing inpublic in immodest clothes.Nonetheless, modernistscontinued to wear revealingswimsuits.

Easy access to cars and mass media fueled youth rebellion. Carsprovided young people a means to escape their elders’ supervision.

Meanwhile, magazines and movies spread positive rhetoric of youthculture, illustrating a world that differed greatly from their parents’



time. Writers Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote aboutpresent-day youth in books with such titles as The Beautiful andDamned. Perhaps no one better captured the feelings of rebelliousyouth than poet Edna St. Vincent Millay when she wrote,

My candle burns at both ends;It will not last the night;But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—It gives a lovely light.

—Edna St. Vincent Millay, “A Few Figs from Thistles,” 1920

The Adult Perspective: Young People Have Lost Their WayMany adults considered the behavior of young people reckless andimmoral, and attempted to restore traditional morality in a number ofways. One method was censorship, as traditionalists removed booksthey deemed immoral from library shelves. They also pressuredfilmmakers to include fewer sexually suggestive scenes in movies. TheHays Office, named for former Postmaster General Will Hays, issued amovie code that banned prolonged kissing and positive portrayals ofcasual sex. Movie couples in bedroom scenes had to adhere to a “twofeet on the floor” rule.

Some states tried to legislate more conservative behavior. They passedlaws to discourage women from wearing short skirts and skimpyswimsuits. Police with yardsticks patrolled beaches, looking foroffenders. Oftentimes, the older generation relied on loudly expressingtheir disapproval. When nagging their children was unsuccessful, manyparents crossed their fingers and hoped rebellion was a passing phase.Many young people, even the most rebellious of flappers, eventually gotmarried and chose to raise the next generation of rebellious youth.



Federal agents fought alosing battle to destroystashes of illegal alcohol. Theharder they worked toenforce prohibition, the morefashionable it became to floutthe law. “When I sell liquor,it’s called bootlegging,”observed Chicago gangster AlCapone. “When my patronsserve it on Lake Shore Drive,it’s called hospitality.”

3. Wets and Drys Clash overProhibitionOn February 14, 1929, men dressed in police uniforms raided theheadquarters of Chicago’s Moran gang. When the officers ordered thegangsters to raise their hands and line up against the wall, the gangmembers ignored them, as the police often bothered them to no avail.However, the “police officers” were actually disguised members of Al“Scarface” Capone’s rival gang, who then drew their guns and fired atwill. Seven members of the Moran gang died in what became known asthe Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. This bloodbath was one of manyunexpected consequences of what Herbert Hoover called “anexperiment noble in purpose”—prohibition.

The “Dry” Perspective: Prohibition Improves SocietyTraditionalists and progressive reformers believed passing the



Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, ortransport of alcoholic beverages, was a great victory. They pointed tothe evidence of alcoholism exacerbating crime, violence, and familialtension. “Drys,” as prohibition supporters were known, believed thatoutlawing drinking would result in a healthier, happier society.

Drys also viewed prohibition as a way of moderating city antics.Support for prohibition was largely centered in rural areas, where manydrys saw the Eighteenth Amendment as a triumph of rural over urbanAmericans. As one dry put it, prohibition allowed the “pure stream ofcountry sentiment and township morals to flush out the cesspools ofcities.” In addition, many traditionalists were suspicious of foreigners,associating beer and wine drinking with immigrants of German andItalian descent, respectively. To these traditionalists, prohibitioneffectively curbed such “foreign” influences.

At first, prohibition seemed to deliver on drys’ expectations. Thenational consumption of alcohol declined from an annual average of 2.6gallons per capita before the war to less than 1 gallon by the 1930s.Fewer workers spent their wages at saloons, to the benefit of theirfamilies. The greatest drinking decline probably occurred within groupsthat resented prohibition the most—poor and working-class ethnicpeople. To them, prohibition was another example of nativist prejudicetoward immigrants.

The “Wet” Perspective: Prohibition Restricts Freedom andBreeds Crime Opponents of prohibition, or “wets,” were originallysmall in number, but grew as prohibition went into effect. Oppositioncentered mainly in large cities and immigrant communities.

Many modernists opposed prohibition, criticizing it as an attempt by thefederal government to legislate morality. Journalist H. L. Mencken, achampion of modernism, called drys “ignorant bumpkins of the cowstates who resented the fact that they had to swill raw corn liquor whilecity slickers got good wine and whiskey.” Another modernist,Massachusetts Senator David Walsh, rejected traditionalist claims thatdrinking was sinful. He reminded drys that the first miracle performedby Jesus had been to turn water into wine. Were Jesus to perform thismiracle in prohibition-era America, Walsh observed, “he would be jailedand possibly crucified again.”



Many Americans—such as thewoman shown above—elected to ignore the drinkingban. Bootlegging became acommon trade. In 1929,Assistant U.S. AttorneyGeneral Walker Wildebrandtreported that alcohol couldbe purchased “at almost anyhour of the day or night.”

Prohibition seemed doomed from the start. In October 1919, Congresspassed the Volstead Act to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment.However, the federal government did not provide the enforcementagency, the Prohibition Bureau, with sufficient personnel, money, orsupplies. Bureau agents were outnumbered by the millions ofAmericans clamoring for alcohol. Hoover later estimated that thegovernment would need to employ 250,000 agents to fully enforceprohibition.

As a result, the prohibition law increased illegal activity by normallylawabiding citizens. Millions of Americans simply refused to abstainfrom drinking. Some learned how to brew their own “bathtub gin,” and



others bought “bootleg” alcohol, which was either distilled illegally orsmuggled from Canada. Even as thousands of bars and pubs wereforced to close, they were replaced by nearly twice as many secretdrinking clubs, called speakeasies. The term speakeasy was derivedfrom the practice of speaking quietly about illegal saloons, so as not toalert police. A 1929 issue of New York City’s Variety boldly reported,“five out of every seven cigar stores, lunchrooms, and beauty parlorsare ‘speaks’ selling gin.” The estimated number of speakeasies in NewYork City alone was 32,000. The widespread availability of illegalalcohol led the humorist Will Rodgers to quip, “Prohibition is better thanno liquor at all.”

The growing demand for liquor presented a golden opportunity tocrooks like Al Capone. Bootlegging—the production, transport, andsale of illegal alcohol—became a multibillion dollar business by the mid-1920s. Chicago bootlegger Capone exhibited his wealth by driving a$30,000 Cadillac, and flashing an 11 1/2-carat diamond ring. Tocontinue driving profits without government interference, Caponebribed politicians, judges, and police officers, and also eliminated rivalbootleggers. His thousand-member gang was accredited with hundredsof murders. In 1931, Capone was sentenced to jail—not for bootleggingor murder, but for tax evasion.

As lawlessness, violence, and corruption increased, support forprohibition dwindled. By the late 1920s, many Americans believed thatprohibition had created more harm than good in society. In 1933, thestates ratified the Twenty- First Amendment, which repealedprohibition.



Aimee Semple McPherson, afamous fundamentalistpreacher, founded theInternational Church of theFoursquare Gospel. In 1923,she built the Angelus Temple,which sat over 5,000 people,in Los Angeles, California.She enhanced her services atthe temple with bands,choirs, and other theatricaltouches. Radio broadcastsexpanded her audience,making her a nationally-known religious figure.

4. Modernists andTraditionalists Clash overEvolutionIn 1925, Dayton, Tennessee, was a sleepy town of about 2,000 people,plus one freethinking New York transplant named George Rappelyea.That year, state legislature passed a law making it illegal for publicschools “to teach any theory that denies the story of the DivineCreation of man as taught in the Bible.”



While speaking with friends one day, Rappelyea discussed an offer bythe American Civil Liberties Union to defend any teacher whochallenged the law. Rappelyea had an epiphany— if they found such ateacher locally, the ensuing trial would not only demonstrate the foolishnature of the law, but would also attract national attention to Dayton.One of his friends knew the perfect candidate—a young science teachernamed John Scopes, who would be willing to teach a lesson onevolution. The stage was set for a dramatic contest between modernistsand traditionalists over the role of science and religion in publicschools.

The Modernist Perspective: Science Shows How Nature WorksLike many modernists, Rappelyea looked to science, rather than theBible, to explain how the physical world worked. Scientists acceptedonly facts and theories that could be tested and supported withevidence drawn from nature as true. By the 1920s, people couldobserve the wonders of modern science every time they turned on anelectric light, listened to the radio, or visited their doctors.

One of the most controversial scientific ideas of the era was Britishnaturalist Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution . Darwin theorized thatall plants and animals, including humans, had evolved from simplerforms of life. The evolution of one species from another occurred overthousands or millions of years, working through a process he named“natural selection.” Others called it “survival of the fittest.” In thisprocess, species that make favorable adaptations to their environmentare more likely to survive and reproduce than those that do not. Asfavorable adaptations spread, new species evolve from old ones. In thisway, Darwin argued, human beings had evolved from apes.



The Scopes trial pitted therespected fundamentalistWilliam Jennings Bryan(right), against the brilliantdefense attorney ClarenceDarrow (left). Although Bryanwon the case, he did not winhis war against teachingevolution. He died in hissleep five days after the trial.Here, Bryan and Darrow sitduring a lull in the trial.

Modernists embraced the theories of evolution and natural selection.Rather than choose between science and religion, they believed thatboth outlooks could coexist. “The day is past,” declared a New York Citypreacher, “when you can ask thoughtful men to hold religion in onecompartment of their minds and their modern world view in another.”By the 1920s, the theory of evolution was regularly taught in schools.

The Traditionalist Perspective: The Bible Is the Word of GodTraditionalists were more likely to consider science and religion inopposition. This was especially true of Christian fundamentalists, whobelieved the Bible was the literal word of God. They rejected the theoryof evolution because it conflicted with creationism, or the belief thatGod created the universe as described in the Bible.

During the early 1920s, fundamentalists vigorously campaigned to banteaching evolution in public schools, and found a champion in WilliamJennings Bryan. A spellbinding speaker, Bryan had played a major rolein American politics for 30 years, running for president three times andserving as secretary of state under President Woodrow Wilson. Bryan



toured the country, asserting that modernists had “taken the Lord awayfrom the schools.”



John Scopes did not testifyduring his trial for violatingTennessee’s anti-evolutionlaw. He did address the judgeafter being found guilty,however, saying, “Yourhonor, I feel I have beenconvicted of violating anunjust statute. I will continuein the future, as I have in thepast, to oppose this law inany way I can. Any otheraction would be in violation ofmy idea of academic freedom—that is, to teach the truth asguaranteed in ourConstitution.”

Bryan supported the creationist cause for two reasons. One was rooted



in his deeply-held Christian faith. The second was due to his fear thatteaching evolution could lead young people to accept social Darwinism,the belief that as in nature, only the fittest members of a society willsurvive. Social Darwinism had been used to justify imperialism, in thatthe fittest, or most powerful, peoples should rule the less powerful.People had also employed it to promote eugenics, or the belief thatthe human species should be improved by forbidding people withcharacteristics judged undesirable to reproduce. Bryan believed suchviews threatened the poor and weak, and worried that widespreadacceptance of social Darwinism and eugenics “would weaken the causeof democracy and strengthen class pride and power of wealth.”

Creationism Versus Evolution in Tennessee Tennessee becamethe first state to enact a law that banned teaching evolution in publicschools, which may not have caused a nationwide stir if Rappelyea hadnot contested it. He sent a student to pull Scopes off a tennis court andsaid, “John, we’ve been arguing, and I said that nobody could teachbiology without teaching evolution.” Not only did Scopes agree, but healso volunteered to teach a lesson on evolution the next day. Rappelyeathen asked the American Civil Liberties Union to defend the youngscience teacher before going to the police to have Scopes arrested.

The Scopes trial, which began on July 10, 1925, drew far moreattention to Dayton than Rappelyea anticipated. Bryan offered torepresent the state of Tennessee, while Scope’s supporters appointedhigh-powered lawyer Clarence Darrow to his defense. Although Darrowhad supported Bryan for president, they disagreed on religious matters,so he agreed to defend Scopes for free. Some 200 reporters arrived inDayton as the trial began, along with tourists and hawkers selling toymonkeys. The whole country was following the battle betweencreationism and evolution.

In their opening statements, both lawyers acknowledged that thedeciding issue concerned more than whether Scopes had broken thelaw. “If evolution wins,” Bryan had warned, “Christianity goes.” Darrowargued, “Scopes isn’t on trial; civilization is on trial.” To help support hisargument, Darrow brought a variety of experts to Dayton to testifyagainst the Tennessee law. The judge dismissed the experts after onlyone testified because their testimony was deemed irrelevant to the guiltor innocence of the science teacher.

For a moment, it seemed as though Darrow had no defense, but hethen surprised everyone at the trial by calling Bryan to the stand as anexpert on the Bible. “Do you claim that everything in the Bible shouldbe literally interpreted?” Darrow asked. Bryan answered, “I believe



everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there.”However, when questioned about whether Earth had actually beencreated in six days, Bryan answered, “I do not think it meansnecessarily a twenty-four-hour day.” Creation, he added, “might havecontinued for millions of years.” Darrow was able to trick Bryan, thefundamentalist champion, into admitting that he himself did notnecessarily interpret every word in the Bible as the literal truth.

At the conclusion of the Scopes trial, the jury took fewer than 10minutes to determine that Scopes was guilty, whereupon the judgefined him $100. However, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturnedthe conviction a year later on the grounds that it was the judge, not thejury, who had imposed the monetary fine on Scopes.

SummaryCulturally, the United States became a deeply divided nationduring the Roaring Twenties. Tensions arose betweentraditionalists, with their deep respect for longheld cultural andreligious values, and modernists, who embraced new ideas,styles, and social trends.

Urban versus rural By 1920, the United States was becoming moreurban than rural. Urban areas prospered as business and industryboomed. Meanwhile, rural areas declined in population and economicprosperity.

Youth versus adults Suspicious of the older generation after thewar, many young people rejected traditional values and embraced anew youth culture. Chaperoned courting gave way to unsuperviseddating. Flappers scandalized the older generation with their style ofdress, as well as their drinking and smoking habits.

Wets versus drys The Eighteenth Amendment launched the socialexperiment known as prohibition. The Volstead Act, which outlawed thesale of alcohol, was supported by drys and ignored by wets. TheTwenty-First Amendment repealed prohibition in 1933.

Religion versus science Religious fundamentalists worked to keepthe scientific theory of evolution out of public schools. The Scopes trial,testing Tennessee’s anti-evolution law, was a legal victory forfundamentalists but a defeat for the court of public opinion. The issueof teaching creationism in biology classes is still debated today.



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Traditionalism and Modernism The Clash Between