Soapbox
A soapbox is a raised platform on which one stands to make an impromptu speech, often about a political subject. The term originates from the days when speakers would elevate themselves by standing on a wooden crate originally used for shipment of soap, or other dry goods, from a manufacturer to a retail store.
The term is also used
History
Origins of the term
Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, prior to the invention of corrugated fiberboard, manufacturers used wooden crates for the shipment of wholesale merchandise to retail establishments. Discarded containers of every size, well-constructed and sturdy, were readily available in most towns. These "soapboxes" made free and easily portable temporary platforms for street corner speakers attempting to be seen and heard at improvised "outdoor meetings", to which passersby would gather to hear often provocative speeches on religious or political themes.
The decades immediately preceding World War I have been called the "Golden Age of Soapbox Oratory".[1] Working people had little money to spend and public speakers pushing their social or political agendas provided a form of mass entertainment.[1] Radical political parties, intent on bringing what they perceived as an emancipatory message to the working class, were particularly intent upon making use of "street meetings", with their speeches and leaflets, to advance their specific message.
Street-corner oratory could also present its share of problems. Chief among these was the policy of local law enforcement authorities, who sometimes saw in
This conflict between dedicated political or religious partisans and civil authorities intent upon the maintenance of public order made soapboxing a matter of frequent public contention. Throughout its history, soapboxing has been tied to the
Additional problems could be presented to street corner orators from rival political groups or
Contemporary soapboxing
During the 1960s, a Free Speech Movement was initiated on the Berkeley, California Campus over fund-raising at an intersection and other political freedoms, and the fight eventually spread to other college campuses across the United States. As advertising professionals transitioned their craft to politics, they were reputed to be "selling candidates like soap", an expression with roots in 19th-century sales tactics to differentiate soap products.[3]
Marvel Comics writer Stan Lee included blurbs titled "Stan's Soapbox" in some of his comic books to share his opinions on various topics with readers.[4]
References
- ^ a b Raymond Challinor, The Origins of British Bolshevism. London: Croom Helm, 1977; pg. 36.
- ^ a b Challinor, The Origins of British Bolshevism, pg. 37.
- doi:10.1002/pa.139.
- ^ "Stan's Soapbox: Elevating Excelsior". Marvel Entertainment. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
Further reading
- Walker, Thomas U. (Winter–Spring 2006). "Mounting the Soapbox: Poetics, Rhetoric, and Laborlore at the Scene of Speaking". Western Folklore. 65 (1/2): 65–98. JSTOR 25474780.
- Trasciatti, Mary Anne (Spring 2013). "Athens or Anarchy? Soapbox Oratory and the Early Twentieth-Century American City". Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum. 20 (1): 43–68. .
- Allen, Tony (2004). A summer in the park : a journal written from diary notes, June 4th 2000 to October 16th 2000. London: Freedom Press. OCLC 60403933.