Charles Henry (C.H.) Fisher was born on April 25, 1880 in York County, Pennsylvania. He graduated with honors from Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PN in 1904. While attending Lebanon he met Mary Light whom he later married in 1909. Between 1910 and 1917 the Fishers had three sons and one daughter – William, Robert, Charles, and Mary.
Fisher received a Master’s in Education from the University of Pennsylvania in 1915 and then taught at the high school level in Pennsylvania and New Jersey for several years. He later served as the head of the Education Department at West Chester State Normal School, as Executive in the Department of Public Instruction at Swarthmore College and then at Harrisburg and, following that, as President of Bloomsburg State Normal School. In 1923 he accepted the Presidency at Bellingham Normal School in Washington State.
While at Bellingham Normal Fisher reformed the standards of professional education considerably. The original requirement for obtaining a teaching degree was one year of classes; he raised the requirement to three years. Fisher also sought to include different curricula, eventually creating a group of general education classes which laid the foundation for a four-year college program. On Feb. 9, 1933, the Washington State Legislature authorized the school to issue Bachelor of Arts degrees in Education. In 1937 Bellingham Normal became Western Washington College of Education (WWCE).
In addition to advancing WWCE’s educational program, Fisher also expanded the actual size of campus. In 1923, the Normal School consisted of a main building, heating plant, and a dormitory. Two new buildings were constructed during Fisher’s tenure, including the library in 1928 and the gym in 1935.
In April 1935 a group of concerned Bellingham citizens brought ten charges against Fisher, including that he promoted liberal and non-traditional religious ideas at the college. The group and WWCE Board of Trustees continued applying pressure to oust Fisher and, in 1939, Washington State Governor Clarence D. Martin asked him to resign from Western. The governor cited Fisher’s “lack of tact” and argued that the decision would benefit the college.
Charles Henry died in Seattle, Washington, in 1964. The Charles H. Fisher Memorial Fountain on Western’s campus was dedicated in May 1968.
Sources: “College Group Raps Ouster of Dr. Fisher,” Western Front, October 16, 1970. “Bloomsburg Administrator Attained National Notoriety,” Bloomsburg University newspaper, April 18, 1984.
The Charles Henry Fisher Collection contains personal and professional papers documenting the Fisher Family and Charles’ career as the fourth President of Bellingham Normal School (later Western Washington College of Education).
The Fisher Family Papers contain genealogical and biographical information about several generations of Fishers, including Charles’ parents and children. The papers also include personal correspondence between C.H. and Mary Fisher and their children – William, Robert, Charles, and Mary, as well as several other family members.
C.H. Fisher’s Professional Papers include material from his tenure at Bellingham Normal/Western Washington College of Education through his controversial dismissal in 1939. There are also papers related to subsequent activities following his departure from WWCE.
The Charles Henry Fisher Collection is organized according to the following series arrangement:
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Material in the collection may be subject to copyright restrictions.
Charles Henry Fisher Collection, Special Collections, Western Libraries Archives & Special Collections, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225-9103.
Some material was transferred from the University of Washington Special Collections in May 2005, and the bulk of the collection was donated by Mary Ann Fisher in November 2006.
Related material is available in the Bellingham Herald collection on Charles H. Fisher located at the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies. The University Archives also has records related to Charles H. Fisher's tenure as President of the Western Washington College of Education.
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The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.