Henry Major, 1889 - 1948 - John Thomas Scopes - 1925 - T-Shirt

This is a pencil caricature in strict profile of John Thomas Scopes, drawn by Henry Major in 1925, with a long nose, pursed mouth and a jacket built from loose diagonal hatching.

Visual Elements & Composition

The drawing sits on a warm cream sheet, and almost all of it is graphite. Economical lines define the short hair, the high forehead, a single curved stroke for the ear and a small, tightly closed mouth beneath a receding chin. The nose is the strongest mark on the page. A collar and narrow tie fall at the neck, and the shoulder is shaded with diagonal hatching that gives the figure its weight. Pencilled marks at the upper right and a small label reading Scopes at the lower right frame the portrait.

Meaning & Symbolism

Scopes was the Tennessee schoolteacher prosecuted in 1925 under the state's law against teaching human evolution in public schools. The trial, held in Dayton, set Clarence Darrow against William Jennings Bryan and turned a small-town courtroom into a national debate over science, religion and education. Major reduces him to a few sharp features, so the slight, serious figure at the centre of that controversy reads at once as a face from the news. Caricatures like this were a regular form of newspaper and magazine illustration in the period, and the drawing carries the wry, pointed tone of that work.

On the Tee

A tee carries its image across the chest, so this profile faces outward toward anyone who looks at the wearer. The sharp outline and open cream field suit a single figure seen up close, the way a sketch is meant to be read. Wearing it puts a 1925 newspaper face in everyday view.