Francis McCracken Fisher Papers

Francis McCracken Mac Fisher was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on May 6, 1907. He arrived in China in July of 1928 on a student tour of the Far East and ended up staying for a number of years, during which time he became one of America's foremost newspaper correspondents. Fisher attended Yenching University in Beijing from 1931 to 1933 and graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism. Yenching University taught many courses in English and, because of its close ties to the University of Missouri, specialized in journalistic coursework. Fisher became the North China correspondent for the United Press Association in 1935 and worked with that organization until 1939, first in Beijing and later in Hankow, where he covered the city's fall to the Japanese in 1938.

Fisher returned to the U.S. in 1939 and was rehired by the United Press in 1940 as its Manager to Free China. He arrived in Chunking in May of 1941 to take up his responsibilities in that capacity. In December of the same year he was sworn in as a member of the Auxiliary Foreign Service as the Representative in China of the U.S. Office of the Coordinator of Information. He later became the Policy Information Officer for the State Department's Office of Far Eastern Affairs.

During his second residence in China Fisher was among the foreign reporters who visited the Communists in their northern stronghold at Yenan, an action that caused concern in Congress during the McCarthy era. After his second return home, Fisher found it expedient to live in Europe rather than in America. Fisher died on October 19, 2000.