Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 21

March 29-30, 2025: March 2025 Recap

 [A Recapof the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

March3: Hockey Histories: Origin Points: On the 150th anniversary ofthe first organized hockey game, a series on the sport’s histories kicks offwith three telling layers to that first game.

March4: Hockey Histories: Fighting: The series continues with the way not toargue for the sport’s violent tradition, and a possible way to do so.

March5: Hockey Histories: The Miracle on Ice: The symbolic role of sports insociety, and the line between history and story, as the series skates on.

March6: Hockey Histories: Black Players: Three groundbreaking players whotogether reflect the sport’s gradual evolution towards its more diverse 21stcentury community.

March7: Hockey Histories: Team Trans: The series concludes with two complicatedand equally important ways to contextualize a groundbreaking hockey team.

March8-9: Significant Sports Studiers: Following up my own SportsStudying, aspecial weekend post highlighting Bluesky Starter Packs of other SportsStudiers.

March10: Spring Breaking at the Movies: Spring Break: A Spring Break series oncinematic representations of the college tradition starts with more and lessdestructive pop culture stereotypes in a 1983 non-classic.

March11: Spring Breaking at the Movies: Spring Breakers: The series continues withthe fine line between challenging and exploiting the objectification of femalecelebrities.

March12: Spring Breaking at the Movies: From Justin to Kelly: What wasn’t newabout a historic beach bomb, and what was, as the series parties on.

March13: Spring Breaking at the Movies: Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise:American anti-intellectualism and the worse and better ways to challenge it.

March14: Spring Breaking at the Movies: Baywatch: The series concludes with arepeat of one of my favorite posts, on why the beautiful beach bodies are alsoa body of evidence.

March15-16: Reflections of a College Dad: As I near the end of my first year asa college dad (and the start of my first year with two young men in college…lesigh), three of the countless moments when I’ve been pleasantly reminded of mychanged circumstances.

March17: ScopesStudying: The Butler Act: For the 100th anniversary ofthe anti-evolution Tennessee law, a series on it and its famous legal aftermathkicks off with three historical ironies.

March18: ScopesStudying: John Scopes: The series continues with threeinteresting facts about the science teacher who became the center of one of ourmost famous trials.

March19: ScopesStudying: Bryan and Darrow: Two ways to contextualize the trial’smost famous debate, as the series evolves on.

March20: ScopesStudying: Three Plays: How three stage adaptations of the trialreflect the fraught relationship between art and history.

March21: ScopesStudying: “Part Man, Part Monkey”: The series concludes withthree layers to one of Springsteen’s funniest and most under-rated tracks (justask my wife!).

March22-23: 21st Century Attacks on Educators: A special weekend poston what’s new about our horrifying spate of anti-education attacks, and what’s frustratinglynot.

March24: Patriotic Speeches: Patrick Henry: A series for the 250thanniversary of the “Give me liberty” speech kicks off with excerpts from bookon the contested history of American patriotism.

March25: Patriotic Speeches: Frederick Douglass: The series continues with thestunning critical patriotic speech that’s just as important 170 years later.

March26: Patriotic Speeches: August Spies: The inspiring patriotic speech that concludeda farcical show trial, as the series orates on.

March27: Patriotic Speeches: Margaret Chase Smith: Why we shouldn’t misrepresenta famous 1950 speech as apolitical, and why it’s well worth celebrating nevertheless.

March28: Patriotic Speeches: Alexander Vindman: The series concludes withanother excerpt from my book, this one on a crucial 21st centurymoment of critical patriotism.

AprilFools series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Topicsyou’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

March 28, 2025: Patriotic Speeches: Alexander Vindman

[250 yearsago this past Saturday, Patrick Henry delivered his “Give me liberty orgive me death!” speech to theVirginia Assembly. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that and four otherpatriotic speeches!]

Since Ibegan this week’s series with an excerpt from OfThee I Sing, I wanted to end it with another, the opening paragraphs ofthe book’s Introduction:

“On November19th, 2019, Army Lt. Colonel and National Security Council (NSC) officialAlexander Vindman testified before the House of Representatives’ impeachmentinquiry into President Donald Trump. Vindman, who had first-hand knowledge ofthe telephone call between Trump and the Ukrainian president, offered testimonythat was highly damaging to the president, and so Trump’s defenders and allieswent on the attack against Vindman. They did so in large part by using hisstory as a Ukrainian American immigrant to directly impugn his patriotism andimplicitly accuse him of treason: after Fox News host Laura Ingrahamhighlighted Vindman’s background in relationship to his work as a Ukraineexpert for the NSC, law professor and former Bush administration official JohnYoo replied, “I find that astounding, and some people might call thatespionage”; and the next morning CNN contributor and former RepublicanCongressman Sean Duffy went further, claiming, “I don’t know that he’sconcerned about American policy, but his main mission was to make sure that theUkraine got those weapons . . . He’s entitled to his opinion. He has anaffinity for the Ukraine, he speaks Ukrainian, and he came from the country.”Unstated but clearly present in these responses is the idea that Vindman’scriticism of the president had marked him as unpatriotic and even un-American,opening up these broader questions about his affinities and allegiances.

Just over acentury earlier, however, former president Teddy Roosevelt began his 1918Metropolitan magazine article “Lincoln and Free Speech” with these lines:“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by thePresident or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which hehimself stands by the country . . . In either event it is unpatriotic not totell the truth—whether about the President or anyone else.” And in the preparedstatement with which he began his testimony, Alexander Vindman expresses hisown vision of patriotism clearly. “I have dedicated my entire professional lifeto the United States of America,” he begins. “As a young man I decided that Iwanted to spend my life serving the nation that gave my family refuge fromauthoritarian oppression, and for the last twenty years it has been an honor torepresent and protect this great country.” He contextualizes his ability tooffer such honest public testimony as part of “the privilege of being anAmerican citizen and public servant.” And he ends with his father, whose“courageous decision” to leave the U.S.S.R. and move his family to the UnitedStates had, Vindman argues, “inspired a deep sense of gratitude in my brothersand myself and instilled in us a sense of duty and service.” Addressing hisfather directly with his closing words, Vindman makes a moving and compellingcase for Roosevelt’s point about the essential patriotism of telling the truth:“Dad, my sitting here today . . . is proof that you made the right decisionforty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States ofAmerica in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry, I will be finefor telling the truth.””

As I go onto trace there, and as has only become more evident in the years since, Vindmanwas not entirely fine, as he paid both a professionaland a personal price for his truth-telling critical patriotism. Here inMarch 2025, a couple months into the second and even more radical and unhinged administrationof the President whose allies and supporters levied those attacks on Vindman,it’s fair to say that critical patriotism has become one of the most fraught perspectivesone can take on the U.S. government. But, as I hope every figure and speech inthis week’s series has illustrated, critical patriotism has always been fraughtand fragile, always put those who express and fight for it in danger, andalways been an absolutely essential element of our nation’s ideals andidentity. May we learn from and live up to the legacies of these figures, and ofall our critical patriots, past and present.

MarchRecap this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Speeches you’d highlight?

March 27, 2025: Patriotic Speeches: Margaret Chase Smith

[250 yearsago this past Saturday, Patrick Henry delivered his “Give me liberty orgive me death!” speech to theVirginia Assembly. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that and four otherpatriotic speeches!]

On why weshouldn’t misrepresent a 1950 Senate speech, and why it’s well worthcelebrating nonetheless.

Throughouther long and impressive life and political career, Margaret Chase Smith (1897-1995) wastwo things in roughly equal measure: a groundbreaking woman in American politics,including the first woman to and the first to have her name placed innomination for the presidency at a majorparty’s political convention; and a prominent figure and voice in theRepublican Party, both in her home state of Maineand on the national landscape. There’s of course nothing wrong with her beingassociated with both of those histories, and indeed I would say the opposite—toomuch of the time we view our most pioneering figures as somehow outside of ourpolitics, and reversing that trend would help us understand how everythingin our history is political, even if (or rather especially because) it alsohas the potential to transcend politics.

The singlemost famous moment in Smith’s political career, her June 1, 1950 “Declarationof Conscience” speech to the Senate, perfectly embodies both of thoselayers. It most definitely represented a Republican Senator’s perspective onboth the Democratic Truman administration and the upcoming presidentialelection, as illustrated by lines like: “The Democratic administration hasgreatly lost the confidence of the American people by its complacency to thethreat of communism here at home and the leak of vital secrets to Russiathrough key officials of the Democratic administration….Surely these aresufficient reasons to make it clear to the American people that it is time fora change and that a Republican victory is necessary to the security of the country.”Smith, a moderate Republican throughout her career, had previously been an allyof President Truman on various issues, and so these political and electoralstatements were significant ones and can’t be overlooked when we remember Smith’sspeech.

Yet Smith’sspeech also and crucially transcendedsuch partisan political concerns, offering one of the earliest public critiques of Senator Joe McCarthyand in the process making a critical patriotic case for a very different visionof the Senate, the US government, and American ideals. It did so throughperhaps her most famous lines, “As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascistjust as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist….They are equally dangerous toyou and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nationrecapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy insteadof our ourselves.” But it also did so through her argument for “some of thebasic principles of Americanism,” including “The right to criticize,” “Theright to hold unpopular beliefs,” and “The right to protest.” Throughout OfThee I Sing I make the case for both criticism overall and protestspecifically as core characteristics of critical patriotism, and I’m not sureanyone has made that case more potently in a political setting than didMargaret Chase Smith on the Senate floor.

Last SpeechStudyingtomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Speeches you’d highlight?

March 26, 2025: Patriotic Speeches: August Spies

[250 yearsago this past Saturday, Patrick Henry delivered his “Give me liberty orgive me death!” speech to theVirginia Assembly. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that and four otherpatriotic speeches!]

On the inspiringpatriotic speech that concluded a farcical show trial.

From the outset,the arrest and trial ofthe Haymarket “bombers” was an overt case of presumed guilt, and not just(not really at all) for the Haymarket Square bombing. The media used thebombing to whip up xenophobic fears and violent exclusionary fantasies, asillustrated by a ChicagoTimes editorial that argued, “Let us whip these slavic wolves back tothe European dens from which they issue, or in some way exterminate them.” Thepolice followed suit, raiding the offices of the pro-labornewspaper Arbeiter-Zeitungwithout a warrant and arresting its editors, and then doing the same with theresidences of numerous known socialist and anarchist activists. While the eightmen eventually charged with the bombing were indeed swept up during thesewidespread raids (including those two newspaper editors, August Spiesand MichaelSchwab), there is ample evidence to suggest that the raids were designedand executed to intimidate and destroy entire communities, and that pickingscapegoats for the bombing from among those targets was simply a convenientside effect.

The trial itselfwas no more fair or legally sound. The eight defendants were charged not withthe bombing itself, but with the broader and vaguer charge of conspiracy, whichcame to mean simply producing anarchist journalism and propaganda that mighthave inspired a bomb-thrower: as state’sattorney Julius Grinnell instructed the jury, “The question for you todetermine is, having ascertained that a murder was committed, not only who didit, but who is responsible for it, who abetted it, assisted it, or encouragedit?” That jury was hand-picked from the jury pool by the court’s bailiff, abreak from the normal random selection procedure; it included no immigrants orlaborers. After presenting the jury with a long series of circumstancial andtangential details and accusations that only vaguely connected any of the defendantsto the Haymarket violence, in his closing argument Grinnell made plain thetrial’s true stakes: acquitting the defendants would mean more radicals on thecity’s streets, “"like a lot of rats and vermin”; and only the jurors“stand between the living and the dead. You stand between law and violatedlaw.”

Unsurprisingly,the jury convicted the defendants, with seven sentenced to death and one (labor organizer Oscar Neebe) tofifteen years in prison. Four were executed inNovember 1887, while three others had their sentences commuted to life inprison or otherwise were still in limbo when Illinois GovernorJohn Altgeld pardoned them in 1893, his first year in office (due to hisoutrage at the farcical arrests and trial). That pardon (which costAltgeld his political career) was one inspiring moment to emerge from thishistoric injustice, but to my mind even more inspiring was AugustSpies’s concluding statement to the judge and jury. “The contemplatedmurder of eight men,” Spies argued, “whose only crime is that they have daredto speak the truth, may open the eyes of these suffering millions; may wakethem up.” Detailing the prosecutor and judge’s numerous inappropriate andlikely illegal staetments, he added, “I will say that if I had not been anAnarchist at the beginning of this trial I would be one now.” And in hisconcluding paragraphs, he brilliantly reversed the concepts of patriotism andtreason that had been used to condemn the defendants: “I can well understandwhy that man Grinnell did not urge upon the grand jury to charge us withtreason. I can well understand it. You cannot try and convict a man for treasonwho has upheld the Constitution against those who trample it under their feet.”A moment of American ideals amidst a history that did indeed trample upon them.

Next SpeechStudyingtomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Speeches you’d highlight?

March 25, 2025: Patriotic Speeches: Frederick Douglass

[250 yearsago this past Saturday, Patrick Henry delivered his “Give me liberty orgive me death!” speech to theVirginia Assembly. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that and four otherpatriotic speeches!]

On thestunning critical patriotic speech that challenges us as much today as it did 172years ago.

I’vewritten many times, in thisspace and elsewhere, aboutthe inspiring history of Elizabeth Freeman, Quock Walker, and theirRevolutionary-era peers. Freeman and Walker, and the abolitionist activistswith whom they worked, used the language and ideas of the Declaration ofIndependence (along with the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution) in support oftheir anti-slavery petitions and legal victories, and in so doing contributedsignificantly to the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts. I’m hard-pressed tothink of a more inspiring application of our national ideals, or of a morecompelling example of my argument (made in this piece) thatblack history is American history. Yet at the same time, it would bedisingenuous in the extreme for me to claim that Freeman and Walker’s caseswere representative ones, either in their era or at any time in the more thantwo and a half centuries of American slavery; nor would I want to use Freemanand Walker’s successful legal victories as evidence that the Declaration’s “Allmen are created equal” sentiment did not in a slaveholding nation include(indeed, embody) a centralstrain of hypocrisy.

If I everneed reminding of that foundational American hypocrisy, I can turn to one ofour most fiery texts: FrederickDouglass’s 1852 speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Douglass’sspeech is long and multi-layered, and I don’t want to reduce itshistorical and social visions to any one moment; but I would argue that itbuilds with particular power to this passage, one of the most trenchant inAmerican oration and writing: “Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, whyam I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to dowith your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedomand of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extendedto us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to thenational altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude forthe blessings resulting from your independence to us?” The subsequent secondhalf of the speech sustains that perspective and passion, impugning everyelement of a nation still entirely defined by slavery and its effects. Despitehaving begun his speech by noting his “quailing sensation,” his feeling ofappearing before the august gathering “shrinkingly,” Douglass thus buildsinstead to one of the most full-throated, confident critiques of Americanhypocrisy and failure ever articulated.

As anavowed and thoroughgoing optimist, it’s far easier for me to grapple withFreeman and Walker’s use of the Declaration and the 4th of July thanwith Douglass’s—which, of course, makes it that much more important for me toinclude Douglass in my purview, and which is why I wanted to begin this week’sseries on critical patriotism with Douglass’s speech. There’s a reason, afterall, why the most famous American enslaved person is undoubtedly Harriet Tubman—we likeour histories overtly inspiring, and if we’re going to remember slavery at all,why not do so through the lens of someone who resisted it so successfully? Yetwhile Tubman, like Freeman and Walker, is certainly worth remembering, theoverarching truth of slavery in America is captured far better by Douglass’sspeech and its forceful attention to our national hypocrisies and flaws. Anddespite the ridiculous recent attacks on “toonegative” histories or the concept of “apologizingfor America,” there’s no way we can understand our nation or move forwardcollectively without a fuller engagement with precisely the criticallypatriotic lens provided by Douglass and his stunning speech.

Next SpeechStudyingtomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Speeches you’d highlight?

March 24, 2025: Patriotic Speeches: Patrick Henry

[250 yearsago this past Saturday, Patrick Henry delivered his “Give me liberty orgive me death!” speech to theVirginia Assembly. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that and four otherpatriotic speeches!]

For theanniversary of Henry’s speech, I wanted to share my three paragraphs on it atthe start of Chapter 1 of OfThee I Sing:

On March 23rd,1775, a 38-year old attorney, planter, and delegate to the Vir[1]giniaHouse of Burgesses named Patrick Henry (1736–1799) rose to give a speech at theSecond Virginia Convention. That convention, held from March 20th–23rdat St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond in order to maintain distance fromthe colony’s royal Governor Dunmore and his administration in Williamsburg, wasthe second in a series of meetings of delegates and other civic leaders todebate the question of independence for Virginia and the colonies. Henry hadproposed that the colonists raise a militia that would exist separate from theEnglish army and government, and some of the convention’s more moderateattendees had spoken out against that proposal as too belligerent and likely toincrease the chances of war.

Henry’s speechbecame famous, and a rallying cry for the incipient revolution, due to hisclosing line: “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give meliberty or give me death!” But what’s particularly striking about the speech isthat Henry frames his revolutionary sentiments through an initial lens not of libertybut of patriotism. He opens by making his disagreement with his fellowdelegates about precisely that topic, his vision of patriotism in response totheirs: “No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well asabilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. Butdifferent men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, Ihope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertainingas I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forthmy sentiments freely, and without reserve.”

Moreover, Henrymakes clear that he sees his responsibility to offer such sentiments as itselfan expression and exemplification of patriotism. “Should I keep back myopinions at such a time, through fear of giving offence,” he admits, “I shouldconsider myself as guilty of treason towards my country.” Given that Virginia(like all the colonies) was still part of England at this time, and Henry thusa subject of King George like every other Virginian, he here reframes theinterconnected concepts of patriotism and treason in a particularly bold andcrucial way. That is, while he goes on to argue that freedom is “the gloriousobject of our contest,” he frames the battle to attain that freedom, “the noblestruggle in which we have been so long engaged” and of which his own speechbecomes a part, not just as an opposition to one nation, but also andespecially as a patriotic embrace of another, new nation.

Next SpeechStudyingtomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Speeches you’d highlight?

March 22-23, 2025: 21st Century Attacks on Educators

[100 yearsago this month, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the ButlerAct, prohibiting public school teachers from teaching evolution. Sothis week I’ve AmericanStudied that law and the famoustrial it produced, leading up to this weekend post on current attackson educators.]

On what’snew about our spate of anti-education attacks, and what’s not.

In mypost-Valentine’s non-favorites series two years ago, I included this post on“Non-Favorite Trends: Attacking Teachers & Librarians.” Such attacks havesadly not dissipated at all since that time—indeed, there seem to be even moreof them over those subsequent two years—and so I’d ask you to check out thatpost if you would and then come on back with a couple further thoughts.

Welcomeback! I don’t want in any significant way to echo recent voices (most notably avery frustrating Atlantic cover story published after the insurance CEOmurder, to which I will not link here as I think it was as a-historical as anythingI’ve read in a while) who have argued that contemporary America is moreviolent, or at least more accepting of violence, than in the past—I’m withRichard Slotkin when it comes to the foundational presence and role of violencein American history and identity. But I would agree with the author of thisDailyKos post—our frustrating acceptance of right-wing violence, and indeed theendorsement of it by some of our most powerful political figures, is withoutquestion a deepening and terrifying trend in early 2025. No single day betterreflects that trend than January 6th, 2021, but the truth is that institutionslikeschools and libraries have been threatened more consistently than any otherpublic spaces, both in the ostensible context of specific events like drag storytimesand just because, y’know, they have books and larnin’ and whatnot.

Like massshootings and open carry and all sorts of other corollaries to our ever-more-ubiquitousgun culture, these right-wing threats do seem to have increased dramatically inrecent years. But it’s really important to locate them as part of America’slongstanding, if not indeed foundational, legacy of attacks on educators andeducational institutions from right-wing (and generally white supremacist) domesticterrorists. Up here in New England we’ve got one of the most overt suchattacks, the 1835destruction of Canaan, New Hampshire’s groundbreaking, abolitionist andco-educational NoyesAcademy for African Americans. While I wouldn’t disagree with folks whowould want to locate those histories as part of America’s overarching andequally foundational streakof anti-intellectualism, it doesn’t seem to me that anti-intellectualismalone would be enough to motivate people to physically and violently attack institutions—ittakes the all-too-American marriage of anti-intellectualism with white supremacyto really produce this legacy, in which our own moment remains firmly located.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

March 21, 2025: ScopesStudying: “Part Man, Part Monkey”

[100 yearsago this month, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the ButlerAct, prohibiting public school teachers from teaching evolution. Sothis week I’ll AmericanStudy that law and the famoustrial it produced, leading up to a weekend post on current attacks oneducators.]

On threelayers to the monkey-centered content and tone in Bruce Springsteen’sunder-appreciated gem (one of my wife’s favorite Boss songs):

1)     Humorous Intent: I don’t think Bruce haswritten a funnier verse than this song’s first: “They prosecuted some poorsucker in these United States/For teaching that man descended from theapes/They coudla settled that case without a fuss or a fight/If they’d seen mechasin’ you sugar through the jungle last night/They’da called in that jury anda one two three/Said part man, part monkey, definitely.” I have to believe thatBruce, who has a delightful sense of humor in and about his work (and in lifein general), began writing this song with precisely that straightforward thought—thatthis was a really funny premise and twist on relationship songs (he apparentlyfirst wrote and recorded it during the Tunnel of Love sessions, when hewas focused on such subjects). Plus, as my wife would insist I add, “theseUnited States” is one of Bruce’s funnier individual turns of phrase in anysong.

2)     Human Impulses: I can count on one hand theBruce songs that don’t have multiple layers, though, and it’s the way in which eachverse in this song takes us to a new place that makes it as great as it is. Theopening lines of the second verse connect the song’s central image very fullyto Tunnel’s raw, honest, and frequently dark portrayal of marriage: “Wellthe church bell rings from the corner steeple/Man in a monkey suit swears he’lldo no evil/Offers his lover’s prayer but his soul lies/Dark and driftin’ andunsatisfied.” When the song’s speaker then asks the “bartender” what he seesand the bartender responds, “Part man, part monkey, looks like to me,” that repeatedtitular image is no longer just a funny depiction of the quest for sex or love—it’sa reflection of some of the most natural yet most destructive human impulses,the most animal and unattractive parts of ourselves.

3)     The Heart of the Issue: After a very sexybridge, the song’s final verse takes us to a logical but still I would argueunexpected place—back to the Scopes monkey trial, and to the heart of thattrial’s debates. “Well did God make men in a breath of holy fire?/Or did hecrawl on up out of the muck and fire?/The man on the street believes what theBible tells him so/Well you can ask me, mister, because I know/Tell themsoul-sucking preachers to come on down and see/Part man, part monkey, baby that’sme.” By the heart of the issue, I do mean in part questions of religion andevolution, of what we believe about where we come from. But I also andespecially mean the question of whether we believe because of the myths we’retold by traditional “authorities,” or believe based on our own critical perspectiveson and understandings of the world as it is. And I’m with Bruce’s speaker (andClarence Darrow, and Scopes): to believe based on the myths we’re told is, ultimately,soul-sucking.

21stcentury contexts this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

March 20, 2025: ScopesStudying: Three Plays

[100 yearsago this month, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the ButlerAct, prohibiting public school teachers from teaching evolution. Sothis week I’ll AmericanStudy that law and the famoustrial it produced, leading up to a weekend post on current attacks oneducators.]

How threestage adaptations of the trial reflect the fraught relationship between art andhistory.

1)     Inheritthe Wind (1955): Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee’s play, which hasbeen itself adaptedinto multiple films for both screen and TV, is in many ways the mostwell-known representation of the Scopes trial. Which is quite ironic, since intheir “Playwrights’Note” before the text Lawrence and Lee explicitly argue that the play “isnot history,” that “it is not 1925,” and that “the stage directions set thetime as ‘Not long ago.’ It might have been yesterday. It could be tomorrow.” Tomy mind both the play and the 1960 film adaptation are profoundly focused oncontexts and questions from theage of McCarthy, making Inherit very much a counterpart to TheCrucible (1953) and far more interesting as a 1950s text than a portrayalof the 1920s.

2)     Inherit the Truth (1987):As that article traces at length, Daytonplaywright’s Gale Johnson’s 1980s play was overtly and entirely intended asa rebuttal to Inherit the Wind, but not so much in terms of historical inaccuraciesabout the trial per se. Instead, Johnson believed that the prior play had badlymisrepresented both William Jennings Bryan and the town of Dayton, and sought tocorrect those errors with a play that is hugely laudatory toward both the manand the community (or at least its conservative Christians). I haven’t readJohnson’s play so I can’t speak to its specifics, and in any case it’s importantto note that her goals are no more (or less) problematic than those of anyplaywright. But I’d say her use of the word “Truth” in her title is deeply problematic,and indeed extends Bryan’s embrace of mythic patriotism about which I wrote inyesterday’s post.

3)     The GreatTennessee Monkey Trial (1993): Whatever its flaws, though, Johnson’splay seems to have had at least one important positive effect: it helpedencourage playwright PeterGoodchild to write a play based far more explicitly on the trial’stranscripts and histories than either of the Inherits had been. Inawarding Goodchild’s play its Earphones Award, Audiofile magazine noted that, “Because thereare no recordings of the actual trial, this production is certainly the nextbest thing.” I hear that, and using transcripts is definitely a way to guaranteea significant degree of historical accuracy. But at the same time, any actorwho performs Goodchild’s roles is an actor who’s performing, not (for example)Bryan or Darrow themselves. So the relationship of art and history remains atleast a bit complicated here, if certainly distinct than with either of thoseprior stage adaptations.

LastScopes context tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

March 19, 2025: ScopesStudying: Bryan and Darrow

[100 yearsago this month, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the ButlerAct, prohibiting public school teachers from teaching evolution. Sothis week I’ll AmericanStudy that law and the famoustrial it produced, leading up to a weekend post on current attacks oneducators.]

On twoways to contextualize the Scopes trial’s (and one of America’s) most famousdebate.

Prominenttrials can frequently morph into something different from and more than theirexplicit legal focus, but I’m not sure any trial in American history did somore clearly than did the Scopes trial (certainly theOJ trial is a contender for that title as well). Given that Scopes was recruitedto stand trial as I discussed in yesterday’s post, perhaps the trial was alwaysdestined to become focused on much more than just this one teacher’s case oreven the Butler Act specifically. But it truly evolved thanks to the involvementof two of the nation’s most famous legal and political figures, on the trial’stwo respective sides: for the prosecution, “TheGreat Commoner” himself WilliamJennings Bryan; and for the defense, without question the nation’s most prominentlawyer in the period, just a year past hiscelebrated closing in the trial of Leopold & Loeb, Clarence Darrow. Thebattle between the two men and their respective positions on evolution,religion, and society became the story of the trial, and culminated in Darrow’stwo-hour questioning of Bryan on the courthouselawn (so a larger audience could hear it) on July 20, 1925.

Theexcellent pieces at those last two hyperlinks tell the story of that debate, andof the two men’s overall involvement in the trial, at length, and I encourageyou to read both of them to learn more about this famous, fraught, and fascinatingmoment in American legal and social history. Here I want to offer two differentbut interconnected ways to contextualize the Bryan-Darrow showdown. The moreobvious, and certainly not an inaccurate one, is that it exemplified a seriesof ongoing cultural and national clashes in early 20th centuryAmerica: between the 19th and 20th centuries, between amore traditional and more modern perspective, between rural and urban communities,between (most obviously of all I suppose) conservatism and progressivism. Thebreakdown of those categories is nowhere near as straightforward or simple as theymight suggest, not in 1925 and not at any other point—21st centuryconservatives have pegged WoodrowWilson as a progressive icon, for example; let’s just say Iwould strenuously disagree—but that doesn’t mean that there aren’tparticularly striking moments of overt conflict between them, and the Bryan-Darrowdebate definitely qualifies as such.

But Iwould add that the debate also reflected another defining duality, one that is atthe heart of my mostrecent book and likewise of many of my analysesof our current moment: the conflict between mythic and criticalpatriotisms. It might seem that it was the Bible on which that conflict betweenthe two men was focused: Bryan had delivered a famous speech in Tennessee notlong before the trial began entitled “Is the Bible True?”;and Darrow grilled him at length, and from the general consensus of the audienceto great success (as onecommentator put it, “As a man and as a legend, Bryan was destroyed by histestimony that day”), on many Biblical stories that could not possibly beliterally true. But I believe their respective perspectives also embody mythicand critical patriotism as I’ve tried to defined them over the last few years. Atone point Bryan answered Darrow, “I do not think about things I don’t think about,”which sure captures mythic patriotism’s narrow and exclusionary focus. WhereasDarrow’s probing and critical perspective, expressed throughout this debate andthe trial as a whole, reflects hisoverarching view that “True patriotism hates injustice in its own land morethan anywhere else.”

NextScopes context tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?