The quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. 4, March, 1903-December, 1903Oregon Historical Society
History
The quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. 4, March, 1903-December, 1903
Oregon Historical Society
Oregon -- History -- Periodicals
After the completion of the two volumes on Oregon, Mrs. Victor's
attention was next directed to the volume on Nevada, Colorado, and
Wyoming. In the carrying on of this work, a greater number of
suggestions as to manner of treatment were made by Mr. Bancroft, we
may believe, than was usual in the preparation of a volume, for the
reasons that it was hurried more for publication than earlier works,
that it was written under his immediate direction, and that he himself
collected and forwarded material from the field as required. The
record of the progress of the work, as it occurs in Mr. Bancroft's
letters to the writer of the volume, is of unusual interest in that
the methods followed, though in some ways exceptional, may perhaps be
taken as fairly typical of those employed by Mr. Bancroft in the
preparation of the later volumes of the series which he immediately
supervised.
In August, 1884, shortly before the completion of the second volume of
the History of Oregon, Mr. Bancroft went to Salt Lake City, where he
left with Franklin D. Richards a memorandum to guide him in extracting
material on the Mormons in Nevada which, he said, would be about the
first material needed. Pending the arrival of this, on September 11th,
he advised Mrs. Victor to familiarize herself with the history of
Wyoming and Colorado, he himself having done the same for Nevada.
A letter written a few days later presents the idea of making a plan
of the volume "as the men do on Mexico, etc.," and says, "By so doing
you can give each section its due proportion and by working to the
plan save unnecessary labor." As to the method of treating early
expeditions to Colorado and Wyoming, he says to consult the History of
Utah, and the two opening chapters which he himself had already
written on Nevada. When these chapters were prepared, it was the
intention to devote an entire volume to this state. In planning the
work as recommended in this letter, Mrs. Victor ascertained that these
chapters were out of proportion for the volume as now planned, and
wrote to Mr. Bancroft to this effect. On September 21st, however, he
advised her that he recognized the fact, but that they would "have to
do." On the same date he forwarded the dictations of three of the
first Mormons in Nevada, requesting that when the material had been
used for this volume, they be turned over to Mr. Bates, then at work
on the History of Utah. He also suggested a perusal of Benton's City
Saints and other Utah books for light on Nevada, and directed that Mr.
Newkirk search the library thoroughly for Nevada material.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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