The correspondence is particularly strong for the World War I period, including not only many letters from former students in the military (including a few from Archangel in 1919), but also showing Fish's many local, state, and national patriotic activities. Among these was service with the National Board for Historical Service, which assisted history teachers in adjusting their teaching to wartime conditions, and work as director in London of the American University Union, which was established for college men in the Army. Documented peacetime activities include the University Curriculum Committee, the Anglo-American Club, and various peace groups. The papers also show Fish's connections with the General Board of Religious Education of the Episcopal Church and the American School of the Air. Fish was widely acquainted with American and British historians and other intellectuals and the collection includes correspondence with Edward Channing, E. Merton Coulter, Charles G. Crump, Albert Bushnell Hart, J. Franklin Jameson, Alexander Meiklejohn, Frederic L. Paxson, Winifred T. Root, Lucy M. Salmon, Asa C. Tilton, Frederick Jackson Turner, and many others. Correspondence is also frequent with the American Book Company, a textbook publisher. (Published syllabi for several classes taught by Fish are held by the Historical Society Library.) His popular course, “Representative Americans,” is documented by lecture notes, readings, and an unpublished book manuscript on the same subject. Research for a posthumously published book on the Civil War includes transcripts of manuscripts in the Library of Congress and two boxes of note cards of data from foreign sources. A typewritten manuscript by Lester J. Cappon references many ideas from Fish scholarship. In addition, there is a diary of brief entries for the years 1852-1853 kept by his father Isaac of Providence, Rhode Island during a trip to Europe, Egypt, and the Near East. The financial miscellany includes pre-Revolution Russian government bonds. The photographs were enclosed with the World War I correspondence and include several of Chanute Field from Robert Brown, a pilot.
