AncientFaces Your browser does not support JavaScript!
Please enable JavaScript to view the entire contents of this page.

Clarence Seward Darrow 1857 - 1938

Clarence Seward Darrow was born on April 18, 1857 at April 18, 1857 in Farmdale, Trumbull County, Ohio United States, and died at age 80 years old on March 13, 1938 in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois.

Clarence Seward Darrow

April 18, 1857

April 18, 1857 in Farmdale, Trumbull County, Ohio, 44428, United States

March 13, 1938

Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, United States

Male

Looking for another Clarence Darrow?

Clarence Seward Darrow Clarence Darrow (1857 - 1938)

ADVERTISEMENT BY ANCESTRY.COM

This page exists for YOU
and everyone who remembers Clarence.

Share what you know,
even ask what you wish you knew.

Invite others to do the same,
but don't worry if you can't...

Someone, somewhere will find this page,
and we'll notify you when they do.

Clarence Seward Darrow's History: 1857 - 1938

Uncover new discoveries and connections today by sharing about people & moments from yesterday.

- Discover how AncientFaces works.

Introduction

Clarence Darrow American lawyer Description: Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer who became famous in the early 20th century for his involvement in the Leopold and Loeb murder trial and the Scopes "Monkey" Trial. He was a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and a prominent advocate for Georgist economic reform. Born: April 18, 1857, Farmdale, OH Died: March 13, 1938, Chicago, IL Full name: Clarence Seward Darrow Education: Allegheny College, University of Michigan, University of Michigan Law School Quotes You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means. As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.
04/18

1857

Birthday

April 18, 1857

Birthdate

April 18, 1857 in Farmdale, Trumbull County, Ohio 44428, United States

Birthplace

ADVERTISEMENT BY
Early Life & Education

University of Michigan Law School.
Professional Career

One of the World's Most Famous Lawyers.
Personal Life & Family

Clarence Darrow AMERICAN LAWYER WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica LAST UPDATED: Apr 14, 2020 See Article History Alternative Title: Clarence Seward Darrow Clarence Darrow, in full Clarence Seward Darrow, (born April 18, 1857, near Kinsman, Ohio, U.S.—died March 13, 1938, Chicago, Illinois), lawyer whose work as defense counsel in many dramatic criminal trials earned him a place in American legal history. He was also well known as a public speaker, debater, and miscellaneous writer. Darrow attended law school for only one year before being admitted to the Ohio bar in 1878. He moved to Chicago in 1887 and immediately took part in attempts to free the anarchists charged with murder in the Haymarket Riot (May 4, 1886). Through his friendship with Judge John Peter Altgeld, afterward governor of Illinois, Darrow was appointed Chicago city corporation counsel in 1890, and then he became general attorney for the Chicago and North Western Railway. He left the North Western to defend Eugene V. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, and other union leaders arrested on a federal charge of contempt of court arising from the Pullman Strike (May–July 1894). Although Debs and his associates were convicted and the decision was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, Darrow established a national reputation as a labor and criminal lawyer. In arbitration hearings during the Pennsylvania anthracite coal strike (1902–03), Darrow represented the striking miners and in cross-examination illumined not only the arduous working conditions in the mines but also the degree to which child labour was used. Subsequently (1907), he secured the acquittal of the labour leader William D. (“Big Bill”) Haywood for the assassination of former governor Frank R. Steunenberg of Idaho. He abandoned labour litigation after the McNamara brothers, two labour leaders whom he defended against charges of dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building, unexpectedly switched their plea to guilty during the course of their trial (1911). After World War I, Darrow defended several war protesters charged with violating state sedition laws. He saved (1924) Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold from a death sentence (though not from imprisonment) for the murder of 14-year-old Robert Franks in Chicago. In the famous trial of John T. Scopes at Dayton, Tennessee (July 10–21, 1925), Darrow defended a high-school teacher who had broken a state law by presenting the Darwinian theory of evolution. In the Sweet case (1925–26), he won acquittal for a black family that had fought against a mob trying to expel it from its residence in a white neighborhood in Detroit. At various times Darrow was a law partner of Altgeld and of the poet Edgar Lee Masters. His courtroom pleas were filled with allusions based on his wide reading. In his speeches and writings he advocated the closed shop and unrestricted freedom of expression and opposed capital punishment, Prohibition, protective tariffs, and the League of Nations. Among his books are An Eye for an Eye (1905; a novel), Crime: Its Cause and Treatment (1922), The Prohibition Mania (1927; with Victor S. Yarros), and The Story of My Life (1932). Darrow, Clarence Darrow, Clarence Clarence Darrow, 1932. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
03/13

1938

Death

March 13, 1938

Death date

Unknown
Cause of death

Chicago, Cook County, Illinois United States
Death location

ADVERTISEMENT BY
Obituary

Picture of Added by Penfold Clarence Darrow BIRTH 18 Apr 1857 Kinsman, Trumbull County, Ohio, USA DEATH 13 Mar 1938 (aged 80) Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, USA BURIAL Cremated, Ashes scattered, Specifically: Scattered in the Columbia Basin behind the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, Illinois MEMORIAL ID 6426 · View Source MEMORIAL PHOTOS 2 FLOWERS 472 Lawyer, Social Reformer. He was the son of former Unitarian minister who was a freethinking iconoclast who sheltered escaping slaves in the Darrows' Kinsman, Ohio home. Attracted to debate by his father's continual need to defend his political and religious positions, Clarence Darrow trained for one year as an undergraduate at Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania and for another year at the University of Michigan Law School before passing the Ohio State Bar exam in 1878 and beginning his practice in Youngstown. Darrow moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1887 to become a corporate attorney for Chicago and Northwestern Railway, but left that position in 1894 to defend his employer's opponent Eugene V. Debs, the leader of the American Railway Union in the Pullman Strike of 1894. From that point on, Clarence Darrow would become known as a premier defense attorney who specialized in representing those from the American underclass. Among his better known cases were his successful defense of International Workers of the World leader Bill Haywood in that radical labor leader's trial for the 1905 assassination of Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg, his 1911 successful plea bargain on behalf of brothers James B. McNamara and John J. McNamara after the militant trade unionists had bombed the "Los Angeles Times" offices, and his 1925 work on behalf of Ossian H. Sweet and Henry Sweet (along with nine other African-American defendants) in a series of trials that ended up with all eleven accused being cleared - a historic precedent in trials involving black people charged with crimes against whites. Darrow's two best known cases were the Leopold and Loeb murder case in 1924 and the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in 1925. In the Leopold and Loeb case, the accused teenagers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, both University of Chicago students with IQs in the high genius range, had murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks as an experiment in Nietzschean ethics. Faced with a mountain of physical evidence and very unsympathetic defendants, Darrow opted to advise his clients to plead guilty, then delivered a twelve-hour closing argument that invoked the forces of modern ideas on the crime and a Freudian understanding of the defendants' motivations; Leopold and Loeb were both spared the death penalty. In the Scopes trial, Darrow defended John T. Scopes, a Tennessee football coach accused of violating that state's Butler Act by teaching evolution while filling in for an absent biology teacher. Though Scopes was found guilty, Clarence Darrow made his case for scientific free thought by calling the prosecuting attorney, statesman and religious activist William Jennings Bryan, as a witness on the Bible and, in the opinion of most observers, proving Bryan's position specious; Scopes guilty verdict was later overturned on a technicality. Clarence Darrow largely retired after the Scopes trial, though he did accept a large fee (after taking large stock losses in the Great Depression) to defend the wealthy Thalia Massie in a racially charged 1934 manslaughter trial in the then-territory of Hawaii. Following his death, Darrow was portrayed by Spencer Tracy in the 1960 film "Inherit the Wind" (based on the Scopes trial) and by Henry Fonda in a 1974 one-man show recapping the social advocate's life.

ADVERTISEMENT BY
Looking for more information?
share

Memories

below

Join 3 others
who remember Clarence

Select options below to share special moments.

Ethnicity & Family History Nationality & Locations Baptism Religious Beliefs Military Service Gravesite & Burial Add Memory Add Photo Ask others to share

Share what you remember.
Ask what you wish to know.
Connect to discover more.
Advertisement
Did you know?

Clarence Seward Darrow lived 5 years longer than the average family member when died at the age of 80.

ADVERTISEMENT BY
Looking for more information?
share

Memories

below