BENZIGER. - A Catholic publishing house of Swiss origin, with branches in the United States of America (New York, Cincinnati, Chicago), in Germany (Cologne, Waldshut) and elsewhere. Its founder was Josef Carl B., born in 1762 at Einsiedeln, Switzerland, and died there in 1841. Together with his brother Franz Sales B. (b. 1758, d. 1827), who was director of the printing house of the local Benedictine abbey, he laid the foundation for the future great publishing house.
In 1833 the company was reconstituted by Josef Karl (1799–1873) and Nikolaus B. (1808–64). Under these two new publishers, book and artistic production saw a very lively development. In 1840 the *Einsiedler Kalender* first appeared. From a technical standpoint, the lithographic process and other modern innovations in the art of printing were adopted. At the same time, a son of Josef Karl, Adelrich (1827–73), who was Swiss consul in Cincinnati, founded the branch in the United States in 1853. In 1867 the publication of *Alte und Neue Welt* began, the first illustrated magazine for German-speaking Catholics, of a popular nature. Large-scale printing of religious texts was also initiated, including the Bible in twelve languages and well-known prayer books. The publishing activity of the company was carried out almost exclusively in the field of popular religious literature. From 1896 to 1914, the Swiss company alone published 2,154 works, while the American branch (now entirely independent of the European parent company) had already reached a publishing output of over 5,500 works by 1912.