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| Location | Minute Man National Historical Park,Concord, Massachusetts |
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| Coordinates | 42°28′8.1″N71°21′4.6″W / 42.468917°N 71.351278°W /42.468917; -71.351278 |
| Designer |
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| Material |
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| Height | 7 feet (2.1 m) |
| Opening date | April 19, 1875 (150 years ago) (1875-04-19) |
The Minute Man[note 1] is an 1874sculpture byDaniel Chester French inMinute Man National Historical Park,Concord, Massachusetts. It was created between 1871 and 1874 after extensive research, and was originally intended to be made ofstone. The medium was switched tobronze and it was cast from tenCivil War-era cannons appropriated byCongress.
The statue depicts aminuteman stepping away from his plow to join thepatriot forces at theBattle of Concord, at the start of theAmerican Revolutionary War. The young man has an overcoat thrown over his plow, and has amusket in his hand. Nineteenth-century art historians noticed that the pose resembles that of theApollo Belvedere. Until the late twentieth century, it was assumed that the pose was transposed from the earlier statue. Based on Daniel Chester French's journals, modern art historians have shown that theApollo Belvedere was only one of several statues that were used in the research forThe Minute Man.
The statue was unveiled in 1875 for the centennial of the Battle of Concord. It received critical acclaim and continues to be praised by commentators. The statue has been asuffragette symbol and a symbol of theUnited States National Guard and its components, theArmy National Guard, and theAir National Guard, and depicted on coins such as the 1925Lexington–Concord Sesquicentennial half dollar and the 2000 Massachusettsstate quarter.
Minutemen or Minute Companies were a part of themilitia of theProvince of Massachusetts Bay. The name minutemen comes from the idea that they would be ready to fight with a minute's notice.[1] The force was created in response to the Massachusetts militia's failure to respond to thePowder Alarm in September 1774.[2] Unlike the general militia, which was made up of all able-bodied white men between 16 and 60, the two companies of minutemen were made up of young volunteers who were paid oneshilling, eight pence for their time drilling three times a week.[3][4] The other difference between the general militia and minutemen was how officers were appointed. In the general militia, officers were appointed bythe governor as a political favor; officers of minutemen were elected by their peers.[3] By February 1775,Concord, Massachusetts had 104 minutemen in two companies.[3]
In 1775, theMassachusetts Provincial Congress designated Concord as the stockpile forpatriot cannons, gunpowder, and ammunition.[5] In response to the growing stockpile of arms,British Army GeneralThomas Gage sent spies to Concord to survey the preparations.[6] Based on the reports from spies and instructions fromSecretary of State for AmericaWilliam Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, Gage ordered a preemptive strike on Concord.[7] At daybreak on April 19, 1775, six companies ofgrenadiers and light infantry under the command of majorJohn Pitcairn met a group of 70 militiamen under the command ofJohn Parker on theLexington Common.[8] The militiamen were alerted to the British advance byPaul Revere,William Dawes, andSamuel Prescott who traveled fromBoston. It is unknown whofired the first shot of theBattle of Lexington, but after less than 30 minutes of fighting, eight militiamen were killed and nine were wounded.[9] After dispersing the patriots, Pitcairn moved his troops on to Concord.
Based on alerts from Prescott and reports from Lexington 150 minutemen from Concord andLincoln mustered on the Concord Common under the command ofJames Barrett.[10] After meeting the advancing British troops, the minutemen retreated to higher ground without firing a shot.[11] Since the British troops had control of the town, they proceeded to search for and destroy the stockpiled supplies.[12] The cannon, musket balls, and flour were all rendered unusable, but the gunpowder was removed before it could be seized.[13] While the British were searching the town, the minutemen moved to theOld North Bridge and were reinforced by militiamen from other towns.[14] At the bridge, 400 minutemen and militiamen repelled the British advance and forced them to retreat.[15] Many of the minutemen who participated in theBattle of Concord went home after the British retreated from the bridge.[16] However, minutemen from other towns skirmished with the British troops during their march back to Boston.[17]
In 1825, theBunker Hill Monument Association donated $500 (equivalent to $13,900 in 2024) to Concord to build a monument to the Battle of Concord.[18] The original plan was to place the monument "near the town pump" in Concord.[19] Due to disagreements within the town, nothing was done with the money untilEzra Ripley donated land for the monument near the Old North Bridge in 1835. After the donation, the town hadSolomon Willard design a simple 25-foot-tall (7.6-meter)granite obelisk to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Concord.[19] The "Concord Hymn" was written bytranscendentalist writerRalph Waldo Emerson for the dedication of the monument in 1836.[20] At the ceremony, it was sung to the tune of "Old Hundred".[21]
To the dislike of Emerson, the obelisk stands on the bank of the river where the British stood during battle.[22]The Minute Man was created for the centennial celebration of the battle in 1875. Unlike the earlier monument, it was to be placed on the bank where the Massachusetts militia stood.[22]
The monument committee forThe Minute Man— which consisted ofGeorge M. Brooks, John B. More, John S. Keyes, and Emerson —only consideredDaniel Chester French because he was from Concord and his father,Henry F. French, was a prominent local lawyer and former judge.[23] The statue was French's first full-size work; previously French had produced a bust of his father and one additional statue.[24] In 1871, a year before he was formally commissioned, the committee chairman asked French to start working on the statue.[23] Throughout the year, French sketched possible poses for the statue. That summer, he created a small clay "related figure" that was rejected by the committee.[23][25] It is unknown what that statue looked like and it was not saved.[25]
French researchedThe Minute Man by studyingpowder horns and buttons from the era.[26] According toHarold Holzer, because French was a handsome man, "there would be a line of young women outside his studio ready to show him their allegedColonial artifacts" to help him with his research.[24] After a months-long search, a plow from the correct era was located to model for the statue.[27] In 1873, his second clay model of the statue was accepted by the statue committee.[28] The same year, the medium of the statue was changed from stone to bronze.[25] The miniature version of the statue won a local art competition in September 1873, but the pose of the figure was deemed "awkwardly stiff" by critics.[29] The pose ofThe Minute Man was made more natural in the enlargement process by working with models. By September 1874, the statue was completed and a plaster version of the clay statue was sent toAmes Manufacturing Works inChicopee, Massachusetts.[30] Because the town did not have the money to cast the statue in bronze, through a bill introduced byEbenezer R. Hoar, the United States Congress appropriated tenCivil War-era cannons[note 2] to the project.[31][32] The statue was cast with the metal from guns.[25]
The statue was unveiled on April 19, 1875, during the centennial celebration of the Battle of Concord, in a ceremony attended by PresidentUlysses S. Grant and Ralph Waldo Emerson.[33][34] French, however, left for Italy to further study sculpture in 1874 and was not in attendance. Holzer suggests that French avoided the celebration "in case the statue was panned" by contemporary critics.[35] French's fears were unfounded and the statue was positively received by art critics and the public.[35]
French was commissioned by the town of Concord in 1889 to reworkThe Minute Man for theYorktown-classgunboatUSSConcord.[25] The new statue, paid for byCongress, was titledThe Concord Minute Man of 1775.[note 3] The reworked statue cleaned up some imperfections in the face of the original statue and incorporated elements ofBeaux-Arts.[25] French made the movement of the new statue more fluid and natural.[36] It was completed in 1890 and installed on the gunboat in 1891.[25] A copy of the statue was also carried by theOmaha-classcruiserUSSConcord in the 1940s.[37]
The statue is 7 feet (2.1 meters) tall and depicts a minuteman at the Battle of Concord. It is, perhaps, a portrait ofIsaac Davis,[note 4] an officer who died in the battle.[38] The farmer-turned-soldier is shown trading his plow for amusket[note 5] and stepping away from his private life toward the impending battle.[25] The sleeves of his coat and shirt are rolled up; the minuteman's overcoat is draped over the plow.[39] A powder horn, mistakenly, sits on the man's back instead of on his hip where it can be used.[39] His face is alert while his eyes are transfixed on the battle into which he is ready to march.[40] On his head sits a wide-brimmed hat that has been pinned on the right side.[27]
The pose of the soldier has been compared to the pose of theApollo Belvedere.[41] Nineteenth- and twentieth-century art critics, such asLorado Taft and H. C. Howard, have suggested that the pose was directly copied from the Roman sculpture.[41][42] Howard in particular trivializes the sculpture as "little more than an Americanized rendition of theApollo Belvedere".[42] Modern scholarship, working with French's journals, disagrees that the pose is a copy while acknowledging that French used a variety of plaster casts of classical sculptures, including theApollo Belvedere, as inspiration when creatingThe Minute Man.[43]
The Minute Man was intended to be placed on a local boulder by the town of Concord.[44] At the insistence of French and his father, the town allowed for the design of a stone pedestal. Several architects submitted designs to the town, including French's brother, but the competition was won byJames Elliot Cabot.[44][45] The resulting design is a simple granite pedestal that is 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) tall and 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) wide with inscriptions in two sides.[46] On the front, it is inscribed with the first stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Concord Hymn".[47] The date of the battle and the year of the centennial are on the rear.[48] Cabot's design is nearly identical to French's final pedestal design. Throughout the creation ofThe Minute Man, French sketched and built a variety of potential pedestals.[49]
Beneath the pedestal is a coppertime capsule from 1875 that contains items from past celebrations of the battle, maps, and photographs of both the sculpture and sculptor.[44] In 1975, a second time capsule was placed beneath the pedestal that includedGirl Scouts USA pins, theUnited States Bicentennial's flag, and acassette tape.[46]
The Minute Man is highly regarded by art historians and critics.Rudyard Kipling came "very near to choking" when he saw the statue and battlefield during his 1892 tour of the United States.[50]Anna Seaton-Schmidt referred to it as "the most inspiring of our soldier monuments" in her 1922 biography of French inThe American Magazine of Art.[51] The Boston National Historic Sites Commission claimed the statue "perfectly personifies the American Patriot" in their 1959 interim report.[20] Michael Richman, the 1971–1972Samuel H. Kress Fellow, calls it a "masterwork in nineteenth-century American sculpture".[41] Chris Bergeron fromThe MetroWest Daily News describesThe Minute Man as "naturalistic detail imbued with an idealistic effect".[40] Harold Holzer describes the statue as representative of French's style of "naturalism, a great feeling of humanity, and connection to the subject".[24]
Louisa May Alcott, writing forWoman's Journal, commented on the lack of place for women in its unveiling ceremony.[52] Alcott and othersuffragettes appropriated the statue as a symbol of their struggle for voting rights, and the suffragettes made pilgrimages to the statue in the 1880s.[53]
The Minute Man was widely used by the US government to evoke the idea of the citizen-soldier, commemorate the Battle of Concord, and serve as a symbol for Massachusetts. The statue appears on the seal of theUnited States National Guard and its components, theArmy National Guard, and theAir National Guard.[54][55] In 1925, theUnited States Post Office Department released a five-cent stamp depicting the statue and verses from "Concord Hymn".[56] TheUnited States Treasury has used the statue on bothwar bonds andsavings bonds.[57] Workplaces and schools with a 90% war bond participation rate were authorized to fly a flag featuringThe Minute Man duringWorld War II.[58] The statue has been depicted on United States coins twice. It appears on the obverse of the 1925Lexington–Concord Sesquicentennial half dollar,[59] and on the reverse of the 2000 Massachusettsstate quarter along with an outline of the state.[60]
Media related toMinuteman by Daniel Chester French at Wikimedia Commons
