Soapbox

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.

[1] Working people had little money to spend and public speakers pushing their social or political agendas provided a form of mass entertainment.

Chief among these was the policy of local law enforcement authorities, who sometimes saw in radical political discourse a form of incitement to crime and violence and a threat to public order.

From the period 1907 to approximately 1916, the Industrial Workers of the World conducted dozens of free speech fights in the United States, particularly in the West and the Northwest, in order to protect or reclaim their right to soapbox.

[2] A skilled and effective "soapboxer" had to be clever, having the ability to express political opinions with clarity, to have ready answers for common objections, to be able to deflect hostility with humor or satire, and to be able to face difficulty or danger with fortitude.