G. K. Funston; Popularized Stock Market

G. Keith Funston, who as New York Stock Exchange president in the 1950s and ‘60s popularized the stock market, has died in Connecticut. He was 81.

Funston, of Sanibel Island, Fla., was planning to attend weekend events marking the NYSE’s 200th anniversary when he died Friday at his summer home in Greenwich, Conn., said his lawyer, Philip Drake.

He died in his sleep of a heart attack, Drake said.

Funston was Big Board president and chief executive from 1951 to 1967, when the postwar U.S. economy and the stock market grew markedly. Stock activity increased about fivefold during Funston’s tenure, to 10 million shares daily. His campaign to spur public investment, “Own Your Share of American Business,” succeeded in tripling the number of Americans who invested in common stock. He also began the NYSE’s first shareholder surveys.

Funston, who spoke frequently to Los Angeles groups during his tenure, was once described by Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Henry as “a slightly over-age all-America Boy.”

Henry appraised Funston as “the wholesome decorative type something like evangelist Billy Graham.”

That wholesome appearance and demeanor helped him persuade many Americans to buy their first shares of stock.

George Keith Funston was born Oct. 12, 1910, in Waterloo, Iowa. He grew up in Sioux Falls, S.D., and graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and Harvard Business School. After positions in business and the War Production Board, he became Trinity’s president at 33.

The Big Board’s first shareholder census under Funston found that 6.5 million Americans--4.1% of the population--owned stock. By 1970, the number had risen to 31 million, or 15.1%. In 1990, 51.4 million people, or 21.1%, owned stock.

Funston was credited with restoring the public’s confidence in the stock market after the long years of the Depression and war. He even hired the TV puppet act of Kukla, Fran and Ollie to explain the stock market, and enabled people to invest as little as $40 a month.

During a U.S. Senate investigation of the stock exchange in 1955, he answered a senator’s pointed question about who made money in the stock market in his usual down-to-earth style: “Those who own stocks that go up.”

After leaving the exchange, Funston was chairman of Olin Corp. from 1967 to 1972.

Funston is survived by his wife of 52 years, Elizabeth, three children and eight grandchildren.