The Marion Ballou Fisk Papers
1908-1926

When her minister husband became ill in 1908, Marion Ballou Fisk polished her drawing and speaking skills and set off on a career as "lecturer - cartoonist - entertainer" on the Chautauqua circuits. She drew pictures and cartoons on large sheets of paper set on two easels, in as many as 20 colors of chalk, as she told stories and lectured. She became a major "draw" on the circuits and toured until late in 1926.

Her grandson, Walter Fisk Gersbach, has presented the Libraries with a most remarkable collection of his grandmother's papers. It includes her vivid letters home to her family, drafts of a number of the scripts she performed, photographs, and advertising brochures. A full inventory of the materials, many presented in fully digitized completeness, can be found at http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsC750/MsC746/MsC746_Fisk.htm.

July 2003