William Jennings Bryan

William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) was an American politician and renowned orator who became a leading voice of the Democratic Party in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He won the party’s presidential nomination three times (1896, 1900, and 1908), campaigning on populist themes that emphasized the interests of farmers and laborers. Bryan served in President Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet as U.S. Secretary of State from 1913 to 1915. In his later years he was a prominent opponent of the teaching of evolution, and he took part in the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial in Tennessee.