Series I. Correspondence consists of family, general, and professional correspondence dating from 1853 to 1925. The majority of correspondence located in scrapbooks and elsewhere in the collection has been photocopied and integrated in this series. Particularly fragile correspondence has not been photocopied and may be found in the Scrapbooks series (III). Correspondence between Morse and John M. Gould offers a rich account of their long friendship. The letters form a continuous, detailed and intimate record which is interrupted only during the period of Gould’s enlistment in the Union Army during the Civil War. Morse was instrumental in introducing prominent collectors to Japanese art and culture as is revealed in correspondence between Morse and William Sturgis Bigelow, Ernest Francisco Fenollosa, and Charles Goddard Weld. Through his influence and encouragement, Morse contributed to the systematic preservation of Japanese material culture and oriental art history.