Francis Parkman, Historian As Hero: The Formative Years

by Wilbur R. Jacobs

A historian who lived the kind of history he wrote, Francis Parkman is a major—and controversial—figure in American historiography. His narrative style, while popular with readers wanting a "good story," has raised many questions with professional historians. Was Parkman writing history or historical fiction? Did he color historical figures with his own heroic self-image? Was his objectivity compromised by his "unbending, conservative, Brahmin" values? These are some of the many issues that Wilbur Jacobs treats in this thought-provoking study. Jacobs carefully considers the "apprenticeship" of Francis Parkman, first spent in facing the rigors of the Oregon Trail and later in struggling to write his histories despite a mysterious, frequently incapacitating illness. He shows how these events allowed Parkman to create a heroic self-image, which impelled his desire for fame as a historian and influenced his treatment of both the "noble" and the "savage" characters of his histories. In addition to assessing the influence of Parkman's development and personality on his histories, Jacobs comments on Parkman's relationship to basic social and cultural issues of the nineteenth century. These include the slavery question, Native American issues, expansion of the suffrage to new groups, including women, and anti-Catholicism.

255 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Wilbur R. Jacobs (June 30, 1918 – June 15, 1998) was an American historian, with a special interest in Native American, Western, and Environmental history.

Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1918, Jacobs moved west at a young age and settled in the Los Angeles area. He started college at Pasadena City College, then earned his B.A. (1940) and M.A. (1942) in History at the University of California, Los Angeles. After military service during World War II, Jacobs started doctoral study at Johns Hopkins University, but decided to return to UCLA to pursue Western Frontier history under the direction of Lewis Knott Koontz. He finished his doctorate in 1947 and then taught Western Civilization at Stanford University for two years, before accepting a call to the History program at the University of California, Santa Barbara (known at that time as the University of California, Santa Barbara College). At the University of California, Santa Barbara, Jacobs served as a founding member of the History Department and also served as Department Chair from 1961-1964.