What is a Pamphleteer ?

The term pamphleteer was first coined in the new world around the time of the American Revolution.

Thomas Paine

Wikipedia defines it this way, "A pamphleteer is a historical term for someone who creates or distributes pamphlets: for example in order to get people to vote for their favourite politician or to articulate a particular political ideology.
A famous pamphleteer of the American Revolutionary War was Thomas Paine. Today a pamphleteer might communicate his missives by way of weblog, but before the advent of telecommunications, those with access to a printing press and a supply of paper used the pamphlet as a means of mass communications outside of newspapers or full-fledged books."


Thomas Paine was most famous for his pamphlet entitled "Common Sense." Common Sense was published anonymously, in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776. It immediately became a war cry for the fledgling Democracy that was America. It angrily rebuked the King of England as a "hardened, sullen tempered Pharaoh," and helped unite the colonies against England.

He was also the author of many other influential writings to include, The Crisis Papers, Rights of Man, The Age of Reason, and Agrarian Justice.

Pamphleteers exist today, instead of a printing press and handing them out on the street corner they exist as websites, weblogs and message boards.