The Oregon Trail

Francis Parkman (1823-1893) was an American historian, best known as the author of The Oregon Trail (1847) and his monumental seven volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as history and especially as literature, although the biases of his work have met with criticism. He was also a leading horticulturist, briefly a Professor of Horticulture at Harvard University and the first leader of the Arnold Arboretum, originator of several flowers, and author of several books on the topic. Parkman has been hailed as one of America's first great historians and as a master of narrative history. His work has been praised by historians who have published essays in new editions of his work. Other works include: The Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851), Vassall Morton (1856), Pioneers of France in the New World (1865), The Book of Roses (1866), The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century (1867), and Count Frontenac and New France Under Louis XIV (1877).