A few years back in college, I had a history professor (the head of the history department, in fact,) tell us that after Charles Darwin published "Origin of Species," evolution was not controversial because the religious subscribed to some form of theistic evolution. It was not until after the publication of "The Descent of Man," which I recall the professor saying argued against theistic evolution, that evolution became controversial.
It's been a while since class and I don't feel right bugging my old professor over stuff he taught ages ago. What's the story behind the controversy in America over evolution?
That's a really big question, but here's a very brief summary:
Darwin was careful not to comment on man's evolution in Origin, but people immediately started debating the implications of his arguments along those terms, so the controversy started immediately even without Darwin's direct input. There were a lot of models of the origin of man at that point, including several models of creationism (was man created at one place and time? Several independent creations at different places and times? If so, were they all the same, or was this the source of 'race'?), several models of the Earth's history (did volcanos primarily shape the surface? Oceans/floods? Was the Earth constantly undergoing big changes, or at basically a stable state with occasional corrections?). Were species 'fixed,' or could species change and split over time (something that had never been witnessed? Was extinction possible? These, in turn, had obvious tie-ins to how convincing people could find Darwinian evolution, which didn't have all the concepts, including population dynamics, that are important in making evolution make sense today.
In any event, Descent of Man was Darwin engaging with an ongoing controversy that had preceded Origin but really exploded in size because of it. It didn't start the debate.
For a more detailed take, read Bower - Evolution: History of an Idea, or Janet Browne's biographies of Darwin are excellent and would probably have indirect discussion of it.