Scope and arrangement
The papers consist of correspondence of Irving Fisher and of his associate, Hans R. L. Cohrssen, and of collateral papers relating to Fisher's plan to end the economic depression of the 1930s through the use of a stamped scrip, or non-hoardable, self-liquidating money; and to gather information on emergency measures such as barter, self-help and scrip exchange, taken by communities in North America and abroad as a means of coping with the economic crisis. The correspondence (in-coming and out-going) is with businessmen, chambers of commerce, public officials especially mayors and city managers, legislators, economists, academicians, and with persons proposing schemes to end the depression. Included is considerable correspondence relative to the use of stamp money at Hawarden, Iowa, and at Reading (Berks Co.), Pennsylvania, some correspondence is with persons in Austria, Canada, France, Germany and Switzerland. Some of the correspondence is in German. Some out-going correspondence by Cohrssen is on letterhead of Stable Money Association. The collateral papers include scripts of articles by Fisher, Cohrssen, and others; directive on the issuing and using of scrip money; questionnaires returned on the use of scrip in Granville, Ohio; and printed ephemera relating to scrip money in America and abroad.
The correspondence and collateral papers have been pasted in fifteen folio volumes in somewhat overlapping chronological orders.