Isaac K. Funk
Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person Isaac Kaufmann Funk (September 10, 1839Template:Spaced ndashApril 4, 1912) was an American Lutheran minister, editor, lexicographer, publisher, and spelling reformer.<ref name=en-brit>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He was the co-founder of Funk & Wagnalls Company, the father of author Wilfred J. Funk (who founded his own publishing company, Wilfred Funk, Inc., and wrote the Word Power feature in Reader's Digest from 1945 to 1962), and the grandfather of author Peter Funk, who continued his father's authorship of Word Power until 2003.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Funk & Wagnalls Company published The Literary Digest, The Standard Dictionary of the English Language, and Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia.
Early lifeEdit
Funk was born in 1839 in the village of Clifton, Ohio.<ref name=ea>Template:Cite Americana</ref> In 1842, he moved to Springfield, Ohio, where his father John managed the Pennsylvania House.<ref>Owen, Lorrie K., ed. Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places. Vol. 1. St. Clair Shores: Somerset, 1999, 133.</ref>
Years later, he attended Wittenberg College (now Wittenberg University) and Wittenberg Theological Seminary, both in Springfield.<ref name="IKFObit1912"/>
CareerEdit
Upon his graduation in 1860, he was ordained as a Lutheran pastor, and served pastorates in New York, Indiana, and his home state of Ohio; his last pastorate was at Saint Matthews English Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, New York, where he stayed seven years.<ref name=ea/><ref name=nie>Template:Cite NIE</ref> In 1872, Funk resigned from the ministry and made an extensive tour through Europe, northern Africa, and Asia Minor.<ref name=nie/>
Funk was a prohibitionist.<ref name=cne>Template:Cite Collier's</ref> He founded the Voice in 1880, an organ of the Prohibition Party, and he was the Prohibition candidate for mayor of New York.<ref name=ea/> His Staten Island home, "grand in scale and extremely decorative", was built in 1893 in what was then Prohibition Park, and the home still stands.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 1875<ref>Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia. 1996.</ref> he founded the publishing firm of I.K. Funk & Company, with the help of a Wittenberg classmate, Adam Willis Wagnalls, a lawyer and accountant. That year he founded and published the Metropolitan Pulpit (later its name was changed to Homiletic Review).<ref name=ea/> Missionary Review also numbered among the many religious publications he founded after 1876.<ref name=nie/> In 1877 the name of his company was changed to Funk & Wagnalls Company, to reflect Wagnalls' partnership. In 1890 Funk published The Literary Digest, a departure from the religious works earlier in his career.<ref>Wagnalls Memorial Library (Country Living/January 2009)Template:Dead link</ref>
Perhaps Funk's most important achievement was his Standard Dictionary of the English Language, the first volume of which was published in 1893. He worked with a team of more than 740 people. His aim was to provide essential information thoroughly and simply at the same time. In order to achieve this he placed current meanings first, archaic meanings second, and etymologies last.<ref>Funk & Wagnalls 1877 (Index of Publishing Houses)</ref> The dictionary was said to have cost Funk & Wagnalls over $960,000.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
From 1901 until 1906, Funk & Wagnalls compiled the Jewish Encyclopædia. After Funk died in 1912, the publishing house eventually became a subsidiary of Thomas Y. Crowell Co.<ref name="IKFAAObit">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Psychic researchEdit
In his later years, Funk spent time on psychic research. Funk was a believer in spiritualism and in his book, The Widow's Mite and Other Psychic Phenomena, published in 1904, he defended a number of mediums and spirit photography.
Magician Joseph Rinn has noted that Funk was easily duped by fraudulent mediums, such as the Bangs Sisters. Funk had bought several of their 'spirit' pictures, unaware they were produced fraudulently.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He also defended Anna Eva Fay and May S. Pepper, two mediums that were also exposed.<ref>Rinn, Joseph. (1950). Searchlight on Psychical Research. Rider and Company. pp. 150-171</ref>
Personal lifeEdit
Funk married Eliza Thompson of Carey, Ohio in 1864.<ref name="NYOObit1912">Template:Cite journal</ref> After her death in 1868, Funk married her sister, Helen Gertrude Thompson (1842–1911). Funk had two sons and a daughter:<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
- James A. Funk (1876–1898), who predeceased his father in 1898 at age 21.
- Wilfred John Funk (1883–1965)
- Lida M. Funk,<ref name="adventistdigitallibrary">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref> a Vassar College graduate who married Robert Scott in 1895.<ref name="Gish2003">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Funk died in Montclair, New Jersey on April 4, 1912.<ref name="IKFObit1912">Template:Cite news</ref> After some bequests to his alma mater and his brother, the residue of the estate was left to his two surviving children.<ref name="DrFunkWill1912">Template:Cite news</ref>
Selected worksEdit
- The Complete Preacher, Sermons Preached By Some of the Most Prominent Clergymen (The Religious Newspaper Agency, New York. 1878)
- Great Advance: Address by Dr. I.K. Funk, as Chairman of the New York Prohibition State Convention. Saratoga, September 12, 1895 (The Voice. 1895)
- Next Step in Evolution the Present Step (1902)
- The Widow's Mite and Other Psychic Phenomena (Funk & Wagnalls Co. 1904)
- The Psychic Riddle (Funk & Wagnalls Co. 1907)
- Standard Encyclopedia of the World's Knowledge (Funk and Wagnalls Co. 1912)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>