Hairy Museum of Natural History

Photograph of John Thomas Scopes.
Taken the month before the Tennessee v. John T. Scopes Trial. June 1925
Photographer: Watson Davis

The Smithsonian Institution Archives has uploaded 39 restored and previously unpublished photos from the “Scopes Monkey Trial” to Flickr. From their summary:

Marcel C. LaFollette, an independent scholar, historian and Smithsonian volunteer uncovered these rare, previously unpublished photographs of the 1925 Tennessee vs. John Scopes “Monkey Trial” in the Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA). In 2005, SIA restored fifty-two of the negatives with funds granted by the Smithsonian Women’s Committee. Included here are thirty-nine of the images.

All photographs were taken by Watson Davis, Managing Editor of Science Service, while he was in Dayton, Tennessee, June 4-5, 1925, and July 10-22, 1925. LaFollette identified and dated each of these images, and has published a new book highlighting these and other images from the trial entitled, Reframing Scopes: Journalists, Scientists, and Lost Photographs from the Trial of the Century, University Press of Kansas, 2008.

Tip of the Toupee to Boing Boing.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Museumabilia.