William Jennings Bryan sits at a two-sided, or partners, desk reading a book while a woman sits next to him. The room appears to be the library of a house: glass door bookcases line the walls. Busts, casts of hands and framed pictures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln sit on top of the bookcases. An electric light hangs from the ceiling and a lamp with a painted glass shade sits on the desk. To the left, a doorway provides a view into another ornately decorated room.
William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) was a Congressman from Nebraska, three-time Democratic presidential candidate (1896, 1900, and 1908), and later Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson. He died five days after winning a guilty verdict in the Scopes Trial (also known as the Scopes Monkey Trial).
