Funk & Wagnalls - History

History

Isaac Kaufmann Funk founded the business in 1875 as I.K. Funk & Company. In 1877, Adam Willis Wagnalls, one of Funk's classmates at Wittenberg College (now Wittenberg University), joined the firm as a partner and the name of the firm was changed to Funk & Wagnalls Company.

During its early years, Funk & Wagnalls Company published religious books. The publication of The Literary Digest in 1890 marked a shift to publishing of general reference dictionaries and encyclopedias. The firm published The Standard Dictionary of the English Language (OCLC 19715240) in 1894 and Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia (OCLC 1802064) in 1912.

The encyclopedia was based upon Chambers's Encyclopaedia: "Especially are we indebted to the famous Chambers's Encyclopaedia...With its publishers we have arranged to draw upon its stores as freely as we have found it of advantage so to do."

Wilfred J. Funk, the son of Isaac Funk, was president of the company from 1925–1940.

Unicorn Press (later known as the Standard Reference Work Publishing Co.) obtained the rights to publish the encyclopedia, and by 1953 that firm began to sell the encyclopedia through a supermarket continuity marketing campaign, encouraging consumers to include the latest volume of the encyclopedia on their shopping lists. Grocery stores in the 1970s in the midwest (Chicago – Jewel Grocers) typically kept about 4 volumes in a rotation, dropping the last and adding the latest until all volumes could be acquired with the initial first volume being 99 cents. The first several volumes were gold painted along the edges and the later volumes were not. These volumes typically were $2.99 and then toward the later volumes had gone up in price with inflation of the 1970s. If you did not go shopping on a weekly basis, or delivery was spotty, there was a good chance that a volume might be missed to complete the set.

In 1965, Funk & Wagnalls Co. was sold to Reader's Digest. In 1971 now Funk and Wagnalls Incorporated (as opposed to Company) was sold to Dun & Bradstreet. Dun and Bradstreet retained Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, but other reference works were relinquished to other publishers.

In 1984, Dun & Bradstreet sold Funk & Wagnalls Inc. to a group of Funk & Wagnalls executives, who in turn sold it to Field Corporation in 1988.

In 1991, the company was sold to K-III Holdings, Inc, and then in 1993 Funk & Wagnalls Corporation acquired the World Almanac.

In 1998, as part of the Information division of Primedia Inc. (the renamed K-III), the encyclopedia content appeared on the web site "funkandwagnalls.com". This short-lived venture was shut down in 2001.

The encyclopedia exists today only as an electronic reference, Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, provided to educational institutions by the World Almanac Education Group.

Ripplewood Holdings bought Primedia's education division in 1999, which became part of Reader's Digest Association in 2007. RDA has ceased using the brand.

After failing to purchase rights to use of the text of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and World Book Encyclopedia for its Encarta digital encyclopedia, Microsoft reluctantly used under license the text of Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia for the first editions of their encyclopedia. This licensed text was gradually replaced over the following years with content Microsoft created itself.