The "Minute Men" of the Revolution

Inscriptions

Inscribed, on stone, lower left margin: PUBLISHED BY CURRIER & IVES; inscribed, on stone, lower center margin: Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1876 by Currier & Ives, in the Office of the LIbrarian of Congress, at Washington.; inscribed, on stone, lower right margin: 125 NASSAU ST NEW YORK; inscribed, on stone, lower center: THE "MINUTE-MEN" OF THE REVOLUTION.

Label

A man on horseback has arrived at a home to call up a father and son, who gather their rifles. An older woman hands over a rifle, while a younger one turns away in tears, her child tugging at her skirt. This image of New England citizens arming themselves in preparation for battle celebrates the Minute Men, or militia companies of mostly young men who could be quickly mobilized against British forces. Inexpensively produced by the large-scale printers Currier and Ives, this print offered late-19th-century audiences a romanticized vision of the American Revolution, published one hundred years after the war.

From the 2025-26 exhibition Revolution Reconsidered: History, Myth, and Propaganda, curated by Michael W. Hartman (Jonathan Little Cohen Curator of American Art), Haely Chang (Jane and Raphael Bernstein Associate Curator of East Asian Art), Elizabeth Rice Mattison (Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art), Ashley B. Offill (Curator of Collections), and Evonne Fuselier (Hood Museum Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow)

Exhibition History

Revolution Reconsidered: History, Myth, and Propaganda, Harteveldt Family Gallery and Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 18, 2025 - August 8, 2026.

Provenance

Dick's House, Dartmouth College; transferred to present colllection, 2006.

Catalogue Raisonne

Conningham (1949): 4144; Gale Research (1983): 4507

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Subjects