Evolution Of Political Cartoon

Political cartoons are used as a way to poke fun at the government, at authoritative or governmental personnel, or at different organizations and all of their followers. They had a major influence on the population of the city of Dayton, Tennessee, the entire nation, but most prominently on the Scopes trial itself. Many different kinds of political cartoons were aimed at many different ideas and people during the course of the trial and even in the years after the trial occurred. Political cartoons became a very popular way of expressing contempt or disappointment in the government and in other organizations and people surrounding the trial. Some of these cartoons targeted the city/town of Dayton, Tennessee as a whole, some targeted specific
people, while others targeted groups of people or beings.
An example of a cartoon targeting the city of Dayton, Tennessee is shown in example 1. This cartoon was written by Knott and was published in the Dallas News, a local newspaper in Dallas, Texas. In the cartoon, the man represents the city of Dayton and he is using the music box (the scopes trial) and the monkey as publicity to make money for the city. The city of Dayton is using the trial as a publicity stunt and "Playing it for all it's worth." This was also meant to say that the city would keep on going with collecting money off the Scopes Trial tourists until they either had no market and more or until they were run off by officers of a higher ranking than themselves.
An example of a cartoon targeting a specific person is shown in example 2.
This cartoon was written by Orr and was published in the Chicago Tribune. In the story of Don Juan Quijote, He ran away from home in search of the knight's dream, to go out in search of adventure and glory and to rescue the damsel in distress only to marry her and live happily ever after. He then found his adventure and ended up thinking that windmills were giants and flocks of sheep were armies. He ended up going crazy. This cartoon is poking fun at Bryan by comparing him to the great Don Quijote tackling the windmill giant (evolution). It is implying that he is a crazy man for even trying this feat. It is also implying with the caption at the bottom, "He is always seeing things," that Bryan is making the evolution issue much bigger than it really is. It is implying that evolution is only a "giant" in his own mind. To everyone else it is not that big of a deal, but to him, it is a huge ordeal. Another example of a cartoon poking fun at one specific individual is example 5. It was written by Ward and could be found in "Judge." This example shows two men, one who is Clarence Darrow and the other who is Bryan. Darrow is towering over Bryan, treating him like a child and pretty much asserting his dominance over the opposition. He is using the statement "There ain't no Santy Claus!" because it is something that you would say to a child and it just goes on to emphasize that the public sees
Bryan as acting childlike throughout the trial and letting himself be man-handled by the bigger stronger Clarence Darrow.
An example of a cartoon targeting a group of people or beings could be found in the Chicago Tribune. Example 3 shows a monkey from the trial talking to many other monkeys. He is claiming that monkeys want to have no relationship with humans because of the way that the humans are reacting and because of the way that they are behaving in the background. The monkeys are taking on the role that humans usually play, the civilized, organized beings rallying together to express their concern over a certain issue whereas the humans in the background are acting very wild and uncivilized and portraying the animals normal actions. He is saying in the caption at the bottom of the page that if the monkeys were able to vote on whether or not humans evolved out of them, there would be many votes against it. Another example of a cartoon targeting a specific group of people but in a different way is in example 4. It was written by Thomas and could be found in the Detroit News. In this example, it is showing a man going up to a monkey in a tree saying "papa" to the monkey. The man represents Clarence Darrow and the whole team of lawyers defending evolution against creationism, and the monkey represents all of the ancestors and predecessors of the monkey who are believed to have evolved into today's humans.
All of these cartoons were very significant to the trial because they were the public's views of it. These cartoons were published in the paper everyone read everyday and that were published in the journals and magazines of the time. These cartoons worked much like letters to the editor work today. People sent them in and the best ones were put in the paper. Well in this case, the ones that were put into the paper were the ones that were agreed upon by the majority of the people or the ones that portrayed the feelings of certain highly influential people.
There are other types of cartoons that do not target anybody but they are kind of showing the reality of the situation. In the cartoon shown in example 6, you see a teacher in the first part holding an evolution book from a student in Tennessee. Then in the second part, the student is off by himself reading the very book that his teacher would not allow him to read. This cartoon is implying that you can deny a child the ability to access something in classroom but if that student is passionate enough about it, he/she is going to find a way to get that book or another similar book in order to read and learn more about it. It goes the same with adults. If an adult wants to learn or know something bad enough, there is not much someone can do to stop that person from learning about the forbidden subject if the adult sets his/her mind to it.
There are two more political cartoons that played a big part in countering the creationism side of the fight.
The first, in example 7, you see a big oak tree right in the center. Off in the background is another oak tree but that one is smaller and on both of the trunks, you see a small little cluster of leaves. The big huge tree in the front is to symbolize Christianity and it's firm hold in the ground. The smaller oak tree in the background represents science, which is growing in size and almost as big as the first. The small little leaf clusters symbolize the arguments on both sides and the effects that they are having on religion and science as a whole. In many different cultures, the oak tree is a symbol that is very highly regarded and associated with the Gods and strength. It is no wonder why they chose Christianity to be the main oak on the cartoon because it is what our country is founded on. It has been there for a lot longer than much else. The science oak tree however, is rapidly catching up to the size of the Christianity tree because more and more things are starting to make sense the farther science comes along. In addition, it is becoming a major principle that the newer United Stated is being founded on. The caption at the bottom is a very powerful one because it links religion and science together. The caption "The oaks that braved a thousand storms," says that throughout everything Religion (Christianity) and Science have withstood the test of
time. They both have their difficulties but they have stood tall through everything and prevailed in the end. The second cartoon, example 9, shows Bryan riding a black stallion. In this cartoon, he is holding religion and creationism above all other issues such as suffrage and prohibition. This supporting creationism because it is saying that it is more powerful and better than the evolution theory. "The Modern Crusader," Bryan, is acting as the deliverer of religion and Christianity.
At the time of the trial, Darwin and his beliefs of evolution were not very widely accepted yet. Many people were still trying to grasp the idea of evolution and many people did not agree with it because the general population does not condone change. Most human behavior does not like and actively resists change so when there was a movement started to accept evolution; it was shot down very quickly. It wasn't just shut down by one person though. It was shot down by many people banding together because of what they believed in. Political cartoons helped this very much because they ridiculed the evolution side of the argument every chance that they had. This stand on no evolution is very evident because most of the newspapers and all of the political cartoons except for a select few were pushing for the evolution side to win and for the creationism side to lose.
Political Cartoons played an integral role in shaping the views of public opinion throughout Tennessee and even in many places in the United States. They helped to get people to choose one side or the other, either because they agreed with the cartoons or because they highly disagreed with them. Political Cartoons from the Scopes Monkey Trial reached many places all over the nation via newspapers, magazines, Journals, and even fliers. It is safe to say that they are not the only reason that the trial took the turn it did but they were a contributing factor in the process. There are few other things that helped to shape the outcome of the trial and the thought processes of so many people. Political Cartoons can be cruel at times but they are and amazing way of convincing people to believe one thing or another.