Adam Willis Wagnalls

Adam Willis Wagnalls (1843 - 1924) was an American publisher. He was the co-founder and co-eponym of the Funk & Wagnalls Company in 1877.

Both founders were Lutheran ministers. During its early years the company published periodicals and religious books for the clergy.

Norman Rockwell paintings which served as covers for The Literary Digest, an early Funk and Wagnalls publication.

Early life

Adam Willis Wagnalls, publisher, was born at Lithopolis, Ohio, September 24, 1843. He was the son of Christopher C. and Elizabeth (Schneider) Wagnalls. He was educated in the public schools and at Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio, from which he was graduated in 1866 with the degree of A. B. Later he received the degree of Litt. D. and in 1915 the degree of LL. D. He married Anna Willis of Lithopolis, June 4, 1868. He was organizer, in 1867, and pastor of the First English Lutheran Church in Kansas City; city clerk of Atchison, Kansas, 1871-1873; in publishing business at New York since 1876; one of the original founders and president of the Funk and Wagnalls Company. He died at his home on Long Island, September 3, 1924.

He was born in Lithopolis, Ohio, but moved away at age 5. He married Hester Anna Willis, also a native of Lithopolis. They had one child, Mabel.

He studied for the ministry at Wittenberg College and later served as Lutheran pastor in Kansas City, Missouri, and city clerk in Atchison, Kansas, before joining his college classmate, the American publisher and editor Isaac Kauffman Funk, in New York City, to form a partnership that in 1891 became Funk & Wagnalls Company. The firm published A Standard Dictionary of the English Language (1894), the periodical Literary Digest (founded in 1890), The Jewish Encyclopedia (12 volumes, 1901-6), and an encyclopedia from which the Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia is derived.

He attended Wittenberg College (now Wittenberg University) in Springfield, Ohio with Isaac Kaufmann Funk.

Publishing history

But the book that we remember them for is Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of the English Language. It was the first English dictionary that gave definitions of words with the most current definition first and the oldest definition last, rather than the other way around. At the time, dictionaries were thought of as historical records of the language. Funk and Wagnalls made dictionaries practical.[1]

Isaac Kaufmann Funk founded the business in 1876 as I.K. Funk & Company. The firm's first publication was the Metropolitan Pulpit. In 1877, Adam Willis Wagnalls, one of Funk's classmates at Wittenberg College, now Wittenberg University, joined the firm as a partner. The two changed the name of the firm to Funk & Wagnalls Company in 1890.

Prior to 1890, F. & W. published only religious-oriented works. The publication of The Literary Digest in 1890 marked a change for the firm to a publisher of general reference dictionaries and encyclopedias. The firm followed in 1894 with its most memorable publication, The Standard Dictionary of the English Language (OCLC 19715240). 1912 saw the publication of the Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia (OCLC 1802064).

A 16-year-old Catholic boy, Robert Cuddihy, came to them and got a job as clerk. Except for a porter, he was the only employee. The new boy worked so well that when the doctors started the Digest in 1890 he was told to "go ahead and make it go." Shrewd, tremendously energetic, and guided by such homely maxims as "Keeping everlastingly at it . . ." Manager Cuddihy not only made it go but made it far & away the most successful current events magazine in the U. S.

Legacy

The rights to publish the encyclopedia were obtained by the Unicorn Press, later known as the Standard Reference Work Publishing Co. By 1953 that firm began to sell the encyclopedia and other educational materials through supermarket continuity promotions, enjoying considerable success with this marketing technique.

In 1965 Funk & Wagnalls Co. was purchased by the Reader’s Digest Association.

The company (by this time Funk & Wagnalls, Inc.) was acquired by Dun & Bradstreet in 1971. It retained Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, but all other properties were transferred to other publishers in later corporate mergers. The firm was purchased by its senior officers in 1984. They sold it to the Field Corporation in 1988. In 1991 it was sold to K-III Holdings, Inc.; and in 1993 it acquired The World Almanac and related properties. In 1996 the corporate name was changed to K-III Reference Corp., which acquired Facts on File News Services. In 1997 the corporate name was changed to PRIMEDIA Reference Inc., and the company acquired Gareth Stevens, Inc., a publisher of juvenile books for schools and libraries. In 1999 the company was sold to Ripplewood Holdings L.L.C. and was renamed World Almanac Education Group, Inc. In the 1990s electronic versions of Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, The World Almanac, Facts on File World News Digest, and related publications were available, on disk and online, both for consumers and for schools, libraries, and businesses.

Anna's wish was to "do something for the little village which had never had anything done for it." Upon Anna's death in 1914, Mabel, their only child, established and gifted to Lithopolis and Bloom Township the Wagnalls Memorial Library, and a few years later established the The Wagnalls Foundation. Mabel Wagnalls Jones designed and built The Wagnalls Memorial library and community center in 1925 to honor her parents. At her death in 1946, Mabel Wagnalls Jones left the bulk of her estate to The Memorial.

External Links

• Funk & Wagnalls Time.com.
• Digest Overhauled Time.com.
• Wagnalls Memorial Foundation Wagnalls.org.

Credits

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