Charles Leon Fisk trained as a minister. While a student, during summers, he performed with the Hesperian Quartet on the Redpath Chautauqua circuit. A few years later, when he became ill and his recovery period was uncertain, his wife, Marion Ballou Fisk, polished her drawing and public speaking skills and developed a career as "Cartoonist - Lecturer - Entertainer," offering lecture programs such as "Americans in the Making," "American Beauties," "New England Folks," and "Cap'n Tommy," an illustrated sermon. She was an active tour performer from 1908 until 1926.

The present collection, presented by her grandson Walter Fisk Giersbach, offers paricularly rich insights into the work of a Chautauqua performer. Mrs. Fisk's letters to her family are full of detail, and the records include photographs, promotional brochures, notes from which she developed some of her lectures, a published article and pamphlet, and programs. Making use of transcriptions begun in the 1970s by his mother (who also performed briefly on the circuits), Mr. Giersbach transcribed much of the material in the collection, and it has thus been possible to link the full content, in digital format, of many items to this page. The original artifacts, of course, reside only in the Libraries.

Ballou Fisk was a performer on the Chautauqua circuits, 1906-1926.