Isaac Mayer Wise was born in Steingrub, Germany in 1819. He studied in Vienna before emigrating to the United States in 1846. He was a rabbi in Albany and Cincinnati before establishing the paper The Israelite and the Hebrew Union College for the training of rabbis. Wise was president of the Hebrew Union College between 1875 and 1900. He wrote History of the Israelitish Nation (1854) as well as an autobiography, Reminiscences (1901). Wise died in 1900.