Evangelical Encounters: The American Tract Society and the Rituals of Print Distribution in Antebellum America
The American Tract Society, an evangelical publisher, built one of the largest media distribution systems in antebellum America. Called "colportage" from 1841, the system mobilized hundreds of "colporteurs" who delivered tracts and books to people, mostly poor whites, in their ho...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
[2020]
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| In: |
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Year: 2020, Volume: 88, Issue: 1, Pages: 200-234 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
American Tract Society
/ USA
/ Evangelical movement
/ Print
/ Distribution
/ Ritualization
/ History 1825-1861
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| RelBib Classification: | CD Christianity and Culture KBQ North America KDG Free church |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | The American Tract Society, an evangelical publisher, built one of the largest media distribution systems in antebellum America. Called "colportage" from 1841, the system mobilized hundreds of "colporteurs" who delivered tracts and books to people, mostly poor whites, in their homes across the United States. This article draws on ritual studies and affect theory to argue that colportage encounters were affectively charged rituals in which colporteurs staged a disposition of spaces, bodies, speech acts, and tempos to transmit affect, shape the subjectivity of readers, and consecrate books and tracts as sacred objects. An up-close examination of these encounters puts pressure on ideas of religious print as a democratizing medium, demonstrating that the reception of evangelical texts was conditioned by the forceful processes through which they were delivered into the hands of readers. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4585 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfz064 |