1878 to collect everything he could for his library to be used in the writing of his planned History of the Pacific States. After a profitable month in Victoria, he visited the chief towns of western Washington and obtained much valuable historical material including extensive collections from James G. Swan and Elwood Evans. In Oregon he acquired considerable additional material and at the meeting of the Oregon Pioneer Society in Salem was able to take dictation from many pioneers in a few days' time. He had hoped to see Mrs. Victor, whose writings on Oregon he admired above all others, but she was away on a trip to the coast. When he returned to San Francisco he wrote to her offering her "an engagement" in his library.[1]
Mrs. Victor accepted Bancroft's offer with some reluctance, for she disliked having to sacrifice the writing of her own history of Oregon, but knowing Bancroft and his plans and resources, she decided her only course could be to join him. So in October 1878 she sailed from Portland for San Francisco. With Mrs. Victor's services Bancroft gained not only her extensive knowledge of Pacific Northwest history but also the use of her large collection of historical material.[2] However, she apparently retained much of her collection, for many letters and manuscripts were still in her possession when she died in 1902. What happened to most of them subsequently is still undiscovered.
The contribution Frances Fuller Victor brought to the Bancroft enterprise was well summarized in an editorial commemorating her birth, titled "Centenary of a Western Historian" published in the Oregonian May 26, 1926:
The original conception of such a history of Oregon was hers; she already had collected a rich store of material for the purpose when Bancroft appeared on the scene. In doing this she performed a service of inestimable value to the state, since its builders were then
- ↑ H. H. Bancroft, Literary Industries (New York, 1891), 293.
- ↑ F. F. Victor, "The Bancroft Historical Library," The Californian, VI (December, 1882), 493. There are several letters in the manuscript collection of Bancroft Library written to Mrs. Victor in the 1860s and 1870s before she joined Bancroft's staff when she was collecting material for her history of Oregon and the history of the Indian wars.
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