Ben Shahn, like several other American Jewish artists of the 1930s, focused on the harsh Depression-era social conditions of poverty, inhumane working conditions and unemployment. East Side Soapbox is based upon a photograph of a union rally of Jewish workers in Madison Square Park. Shahn highlights both the bold labor leader who forcefully addresses his audience and a sign held aloft on which the Yiddish inscription states:

Nature gave everybody an appetite, but our bosses have stolen the key from us.

This inciting phrase, indecipherable to all but his coreligionists, evidences an early attempt by the artist to merge his previously separate worlds of political activism and Judaism.