How did the "Scopes Monkey Trial" represent a clash between urban and rural societies during the 1920's?

The case of State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, more commonly known as “the Scopes Monkey Trial,” represented a conflict between urban and rural environments because of the vast disparity in educational opportunities between the two types of settings and because of the far more prevalent role of religion in the daily lives and thought-processes of those inhabiting more rural communities. Tennessee, of course, is part of what became known (ironically, as a direct result of the “Scopes Monkey Trial,” when journalist and critic H.L. Menken, who covered the trial for his hometown newspaper, Baltimore Sun, referred derisively to the region in which the trial was taking place) as “the Bible Belt,” the large region that just so happens to overlap with the American South. When the State of Tennessee passed a law, known as the Butler Act, it made it a state crime to teach evolution in public schools. The operative section of that statute stated the following:

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

That the State of Tennessee should pass a law such as the Butler Act was testament to the depths of its commitment to historical interpretation through the prism of Biblical scripture. (Interestingly, even today, Tennessee retains its strong beliefs in the Bible as the word of God and the source of knowledge on man’s origins; the American Bible Society ranks Chattanooga, Tennessee, as the most “Bible-minded city” in the United States). This is not to suggest that citizens of the Bible Belt are any less intelligent than anybody else; it is to suggest that the more insular nature of many rural communities across the American South (and in Texas and Oklahoma) and the region’s history of antipathy towards its more “cosmopolitan” neighbors to the north has bred resentment towards outside influences, including in the area of scientific developments that may challenge preexisting beliefs on a whole range of subjects. And, socioeconomic distinctions between such southern rural areas and more densely-populated urban areas, including in the South, were, and too-often remain, represented in the qualities of education received in public school systems.

The American South is deeply religious. In 1925, it was even more religious, plus it was still imbued with a sense of self-righteous indignation regarding its humiliation in the post-Civil War period. Not-for-nothing was the state’s most prominent populist politician, William Jennings Bryan, an observant Protestant who aided, incompetently, in the prosecution of John Scopes, brought down, figuratively and literally, by the more disciplined, learned attorney for the defense, Clarence Darrow, a giant of American juris prudence. Bryan was very smart, but he was product of a very different culture than Darrow, and he was very much out of his element in a trial that delved into the science of evolution.

The urban versus rural divide encompasses education and propensity for observance of religious dictates. That divide was definitely a part of the “Scopes Monkey Trial.” The disparities between cultures and exposures to schools of thought and academic disciplines was as much on trial as the issue of teaching evolution in public schools.