Colportage

Colportage is the distribution of publications, books, and religious tracts by carriers called "colporteurs" or "colporters". The term does not necessarily refer to religious book peddling.

From French colportage, where the term is an alteration of comporter, 'to peddle', as a portmanteau or pun with the word col (Latin collum, 'neck'), with the resulting meaning 'to carry on one's neck'. Porter is from Latin portare, 'to carry'. The term was first used by Bible salesmen working for the British and Foreign Bible Society in southern France in the Pyrenees.^{[citation needed]}

Colportage became common in Europe with the distribution of contending religious tracts and books during the religious controversies of the Reformation. In addition to controversial works, the itinerant book-peddling colporteurs also spread widely cheap editions of the popular works of the day to an increasingly literate rural population which had little access to the book shops of the cities.

The American Tract Society (ATS) is often credited as one of the first organizations in the United States to be involved in colportage. ATS is an evangelical organization established in 1825 to distribute Christian literature.

In Christ in the Camp: or, Religion in Lee's Army (1887), Dr. John William Jones refers to the chaplains carrying bibles and tracts during the American Civil War as colporteurs. The American Bible Society and the American Tract Society were among the largest organizations involved in colportage in the United States.

D. L. Moody founded the "Bible Institute Colportage Association" in 1894 to distribute tracts and books. Now known as Moody Publishers, they continue to publish religious materials with proceeds supporting the Moody Bible Institute.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church calls their book distributors "literature evangelists", but until about 1980, the term colporteur was used to describe SDA literature evangelists.

Jehovah's Witnesses who were active in the full-time ministry were called colporteurs until 1931. Today, those participating in the full-time ministry are called "pioneers".