portmanteau (luggage)
{{Short description|Type of leather travelling bag}}
File:Gladstone bag made of ox leather.jpg made of ox leather]]
A portmanteau is a piece of luggage, usually made of leather and opening into two equal parts. Some are large, upright, and hinged at the back and enable hanging up clothes in one half,{{cite web|url=https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/portmanteau|title=Portmanteau definition and meaning - Collins English Dictionary|website=Collinsdictionary.com}} while others are much smaller bags (such as Gladstone bags) with two equally sized compartments.{{cite web |url=http://www.achome.co.uk/antiques/vintage_luggage.htm |title=A History of Vintage Luggage|website=Achome.co.uk |access-date=January 16, 2014}}
The word derives from the French word portemanteau (from porter, "to carry", and manteau, "coat") which nowadays means a coat rack but was in the past also used to refer to a traveling case or bag for clothes.Petit Robert: portemanteau - "malle penderie" (suitcase in which clothes hang){{cite web|url=http://www.cnrtl.fr/lexicographie/portemanteau|title=PORTEMANTEAU : Définition de PORTEMANTEAU|website=Cnrtl.fr}}
Portmanteau mail bag
In the 1700s, the term also described a mail bag.{{cite web|last=Chmara|first=Agnieszka|date=March 26, 2018|title=Portmanteau|website=Eighteenth Century Lit.pbworks.com|url=http://eighteenthcenturylit.pbworks.com/w/page/121215090/Portmanteau|access-date=September 2, 2023|quote=A 1726 dictionary defines a portmanteau as a Mail or a Cloak Bag... }} This continued into the 1800s for bags used by the United States Postal Service.{{cite web|last=Marsh|first=Allison |title=US Postal Bag Prototype |website=National Postal Museum|url=https://postalmuseum.si.edu/collections/object-spotlight/us-postal-bag-prototype|access-date=September 2, 2023|quote=In the 19th century, both newspapers and letters were placed in a portmanteau, a round, side-opening, leather bag. }}{{cite web|title=Mail bag|date=October 19, 2016|website=Shaker Museum and Library|url=https://www.shakermuseum.us/mail-bag/|access-date=September 2, 2023 |quote=This style of bag, sometimes called a portmanteau, was used by the Post Office Department in the mid-1800s to transport mail... }} An 1823 resolution in Congress further stated that "locks... will be placed on the portmanteaus containing the principal mails [which] can only be opened... at the distributing offices."{{cite news|date=May 27, 2017|title=Bulloch History with Roger Allen: Nation, Georgia set up Rural Free Delivery mail routes|newspaper=Statesboro Herald |url=https://www.statesboroherald.com/life/bulloch-history-with-roger-allen-nation-georgia-set-up-rural-free-delivery-mail-routes/|access-date=September 2, 2023|quote=It directed that here, All letters... are placed in a portmanteau [or] principal mail bag... }}
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