SoapBox Law

Soapbox is a temporary platform employed while making a spontaneous or nonofficial public speech. The term starts off from the days when speakers would raise themselves by standing on a wooden crate initially used for shipment of soap or other dry goods from a manufacturer to a retail store. In public places like London’s Hyde Park Individuals can advocate one cause or another. Some speakers in these public forums will carry a ‘soapbox’ to project their voice and to be spotted by those who might come together. 

During the 19th century and into the 20th, before the invention of corrugated fiberboard, manufacturers employed wooden crates for the shipment of wholesale merchandise to retail establishments. Discarded containers of all sizes were readily obtainable in most towns. These “soapboxes” made free and easily handy temporary platforms for street corner speakers trying to be seen and heard at improvised “outdoor meeting,” to which passersby would meet to hear frequently provocative speeches on political or religious themes.