Page:Emergence of Frances Fuller Victor-Historian.djvu/19

 scrapbooks of newspaper clippings. The administrator of Mrs. Victor's estate, Edward H. Kilham of Portland, allowed Morris the use of these materials, most of which seem to have vanished including the Bancroft letters.

Morris in the course of his article credits Mrs. Victor with the authorship of the History of Oregon, volumes I and II; the History of Washington, Idaho and Montana; the History of Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming, with the possible exception of the first two chapters on Nevada; the political and railroad chapters in the History of California, volumes VI and VII; the account of the Modoc War in California Inter Pocula; a chapter on the Oregon Question in the History of the Northwest Coast, vol. II; and nearly a volume of The Chronicles of the Builders of the Commonwealth.

Some of Mrs. Victor's personal letters written to Judge Deady and Elwood Evans during the time she was actually writing the histories credited to her throw considerable light on the extent of her actual part in the process of authorship and substantially validate her claims. The first volume of the History of Oregon was the first of the state histories written in the Bancroft Library, and in it Mrs. Victor helped get the pattern for the others. It was she who made a point of including the biographies of all the pioneers possible and a list of each year's immigration.

As she began her work she was confronted with many problems. Early in December 1878 she wrote to Judge Deady, on whom she always leaned heavily for information to supplement the Bancroft collection:

I have not yet seen your dictation to Mr. Bancroft-there is such a mass of matter here that it will take a long time to wade through it. A good deal, however, is comparatively useless and not to the point. There are two things that I particularly want done. 1st Somebody to take the Oregon archives from the beginning to the formation of the State Government, and go through them with