“The Minute Man” by Daniel Chester French depicts a minuteman stepping away from his plow to join the Battle of Concord’s patriot forces. The young man has an overcoat thrown over his plow and has a flintlock long gun in his hand.
The farmer-turned-soldier is shown stepping away from his private life toward the battle for freedom. The sleeves of his coat and shirt are rolled up. A powder horn sits on his back. His eyes are focused on the battle ahead.
Minutemen were a part of the official militia of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The name minutemen came from the idea that they would be ready to fight with a minute’s notice.
The two companies of minutemen were made up of young volunteers who were paid one shilling, eightpence for their time drilling three times a week.
In the general militia, the officers were appointed by the governor as a political favor. In minutemen companies, their peers elected minutemen officers. In 1775, Concord, Massachusetts, had 104 minutemen.
The Minute Man sculpture by Daniel Chester French, located in Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord, Massachusetts, was created between 1871 and 1874.
French conducted his research for a sculpture intended to be made of stone. The medium was switched to bronze, and it was cast from ten Civil War-era cannons appropriated by Congress.
The statue was unveiled in 1875 during the centennial celebration of the Battle of Concord, in a ceremony attended by Ulysses S. Grant and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Art critics and the public positively received the statue.
The statue has been a suffragette symbol, a symbol of the United States National Guard and Air National Guard. It has been used on coins such as the Lexington–Concord Sesquicentennial half-dollar and the Massachusetts state quarter.