Four Minute Men

Examples of Four Minute Men in the following topics:

• War Propaganda

  • The committee also used direct human media in the form of about 75,000 "Four Minute Men," volunteers who delivered positive public messages about the war.
  • These talks were kept to four minutes, often during the time when reels were changed in movie theaters, which was considered the ideal length of time the average human attention span could be effectively maintained.
  • By the end of the war, the Four Minute Men had made more than 7.5 million speeches to 314 million people in 5,200 American communities.

• The Homestead Strike

  • His intent was to open the works with nonunion men on July 6.
  • The strikers blew the plant whistle at 2:30 a.m., drawing thousands of men, women, and children to the plant.
  • The Pinkertons returned fire and four more strikers were killed (one by shrapnel sent flying when cannon fire hit one of the barges).
  • Men and women threw sand and stones at the Pinkerton agents, spat on them, and beat them.
  • Within 20 minutes they had displaced the picketers; by 10:00 a.m., company officials were back in their offices.

• The Labor Wars

  • The first local trade unions of men in the United States formed in the late 18th century, and women began organizing in the 1820s.
  • The workers had to buy their own needles and thread from the proprietor, and they were fined for being a few minutes late for work.
  • Within four days, 125,000 workers on twenty-nine railroads had people quit work rather than handle Pullman cars.

• Enfranchisement and Its Limits

  • Freed African Americans were allowed to vote in only four states.
  • White men without property, almost all women, and all other people of color were denied the right to vote.
  • New Jersey explicitly restricted the right to vote to white men only.
  • Connecticut passed a law in 1814 taking the right to vote away from free black men and restricting suffrage to white men only.
  • At the same time, however, New York effectively disenfranchised free black men in 1822 (black men had had the right to vote under the 1777 constitution) by requiring that “men of color” possess property valuing more than $250—an exorbitant amount at the time.

• The Battle of New Orleans

  • Rennie's men managed to attack and overrun an American advance redoubt next to the river, but without reinforcements they could neither hold the position nor successfully storm the main American line behind.
  • Within minutes, the American 7th Infantry arrived, moved forward, and fired upon the British in the captured redoubt; within half an hour, Rennie and most of his men were dead.
  • After about 20 more minutes of bloodletting, General Lambert assumed command and eventually ordered a withdrawal.
  • Dickson reported back that no fewer than 2,000 men would be needed to hold the position.

• Japanese Aggression

  • The explosion was so weak that it failed to destroy the track and a train passed over it minutes later, but the Imperial Japanese Army accused Chinese dissidents of the act and responded with a full invasion.
  • On May 11, 1939, in the Nomonhan Incident (Battle of Khalkhin Gol), a Mongolian cavalry unit of some 70 to 90 men entered the disputed area.
  • Four days later, Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini of Italy declared war on the United States, merging the separate conflicts.
  • In May 1942, the Japanese failed to defeat the Allies at the Battle of the Coral Sea, despite numerical superiority, and in June 1942 they lost a four-carrier task force at the Battle of Midway.

• The Haymarket Affair

  • The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians, and the wounding of scores of others.
  • Twelve Policemen Dead or Dying", reported that Fielden spoke for 20 minutes, alleging that his words grew "wilder and more violent as he proceeded. ".
  • He maintains that the police fired on the fleeing demonstrators, reloaded, and then fired again, killing four and wounding as many as 70 people.
  • What is not disputed is that in less than five minutes the square was empty except for the casualties.
  • The other four were hanged on November 11, 1887.

• The Family Economy: Women and Children

  • "Separate spheres" refers to an ideology that defines and prescribes different realms for women and men.
  • Women were confined to the private realm of the oikos while men occupied the public sphere of the polis.
  • Women were considered passive, dependent on men, and due to their reproductive capacity, ill-suited for life outside of the domestic realm.
  • "True women" were supposed to possess four cardinal virtues: piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness.
  • The magazine's paintings and pictures illustrated the four virtues, often showing women with children or behind husbands.

• The Role of Religion in the Civil Rights Movement

  • Three months later, on September 15, 1963, four members of the Ku Klux Klan planted at least 15 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the front steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church.
  • The explosion at the church killed four girls and injured 22 others.
  • Although the FBI had concluded in 1965 that the bombing had been committed by four known Ku Klux Klansmen and segregationists, no prosecutions ensued until 1977, with two men sentenced to life imprisonment as late as 2001 and 2002 respectively and one never being charged.
  • When the Freedom Riders arrived in Birmingham, Connor gave Klan members fifteen minutes to attack the riders before sending in the police to quell the attack.

• Revolutionary Women

  • Women used their domestic roles to engage politically, though their loyalties and participation were often determined by men.
  • Women participated by boycotting British goods, producing goods for soldiers, spying on the British, following armies as they marched, washing and cooking for the soldiers, delivering secret messages, and fighting disguised as men.
  • Even though these "non-consumption boycotts" depended on a national policy formulated by men, it was women who enacted them in the household spheres.
  • Prior to the Revolution, Northern urban populations were overwhelmingly male; by 1806, women outnumbered men four to three in New York City.
  • Increasing this disparity was the fact that the maritime industry was the largest employer of black males in the post-Revolutionary period, taking many young black men away to sea for several years at a time.