On September 10, 1839, publisher, editor, lexicographer, and Lutheran minister Isaac Kaufman Funk was born in Clifton, Ohio. After theological study and service in the Lutheran ministry, Funk turned to publishing, establishing I. K. Funk & Company in 1876. His former Wittenberg College classmate Adam Willis Wagnalls joined the business the following year; the firm later became known as Funk & Wagnalls.
Funk’s work belonged to the expanding print culture of late nineteenth-century America. His company issued religious works, periodicals, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other educational publications for a broad public audience. The business benefited from an era in which rising literacy, improved printing and distribution, urban growth, and national markets made inexpensive reference materials increasingly available to ordinary households.
His most enduring scholarly achievement was his leadership of A Standard Dictionary of the English Language. Published beginning in 1893, the dictionary was designed as a modern competitor to established English-language reference works. It incorporated contemporary vocabulary, including scientific and technical usage, and emphasized definitions and examples intended to be practical for everyday readers.
Funk therefore was not an industrialist in the narrow sense. His importance lies in the information industry of industrializing America: he helped turn dictionaries and encyclopedias from elite or institutional resources into mass-market household tools. Through affordable, widely distributed reference publishing, Funk & Wagnalls contributed to American public education, self-improvement culture, and access to knowledge during a period of rapid national change.
Image: Isaac Kaufman Funk, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
