What does colportage mean?
Colportage is the itinerant sale and distribution of printed matter—books, pamphlets, Bibles, and tracts—typically by travelling hawkers called colporteurs. The practice flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when Bible and tract societies employed colporteurs to carry inexpensive religious literature into rural districts and working-class neighborhoods that ordinary booksellers could not profitably serve. The word derives from the French colporter, traditionally explained as combining col ('neck') with porter ('to carry'), evoking the image of a peddler bearing goods suspended around the neck or in a backpack. Though rooted in evangelical publishing history, colportage can also describe the informal, person-to-person spread of any cheaply printed material, including political broadsheets. Today the term survives mainly in historical scholarship on religion, literacy, and the book trade.
nounThe practice of selling and distributing books, pamphlets, and printed matter—especially religious literature—in public places by itinerant hawkers known as colporteurs.
- The itinerant selling and distribution of books, pamphlets, and especially religious tracts by travelling hawkers.
- By extension, any widespread dissemination of printed material through informal, person-to-person channels.
"In the nineteenth century, colportage carried cheap Bibles and devotional tracts into remote villages that no bookseller would ever reach."
"The American Tract Society relied on colportage to place millions of religious pamphlets in households across the frontier."
"Revolutionary ideas spread through a kind of political colportage, passed hand to hand in cheaply printed broadsheets."
Rarely pluralized; the term usually appears as an uncountable mass noun referring to the practice of itinerant bookselling.
"The archive documents the colportages undertaken by several regional tract societies."
Before door-to-door salesmen sold vacuum cleaners, 'colporteurs' carried Bibles on their backs across continents—and the job title literally comes from French words for 'neck' and 'carry'.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of colportage
Colportage entered English from the French colporter, meaning to hawk or peddle goods, likely in the early nineteenth century alongside the growth of organized Bible and tract societies. The French term is traditionally analyzed as col ('neck', from Latin collum) plus porter ('to carry', from Latin portare), suggesting the image of a peddler carrying wares slung about the neck. Its most direct English relative is the agent noun colporteur, an itinerant bookseller. It shares the Latin root portare with words such as portable, transport, and comport.
Related word forms
How colportage is actually used
Colportage is a somewhat formal, historical term, most often encountered in discussions of nineteenth-century religious publishing, missionary work, and the history of the book trade. It carries neutral to mildly nostalgic connotations and is rarely used in everyday speech.
Easily confused with colportage
A colporteur is the individual who sells or distributes literature, whereas colportage is the activity or system of such distribution itself.