page_title: Frances Fuller Victor
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Frances Fuller Victor / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Parkhurst Hotel group Victor Rock, Crater Lake. View from Victor Rock, viewpoint named for Oregon historian Frances Fuller Victor
context_page_description: Frances Auretta Fuller Victor was an American historian and historical novelist. She has been described as "the first Oregon historian to gain regional and national attention." She was known for her books about the West and especially Oregon history.
context_section_description: Fuller Victor was buried at River View Cemetery in Portland. The initial grave marker was made of wood, and did not last long. In 1947, the Daughters of the American Revolution supplied a permanent grave marker. Fuller Victor's name was included among the names of significant Oregonians on the walls of the Oregon State Capitol, which was completed in 1938. In 1945 Crater Lake National Park formalized the name of "Victor View," a viewpoint on the rim of the park, in her honor.
  In many respects, her legacy continued to be overshadowed by that of historian Hubert Howe Bancroft, though her authorship was recognized by a number of authorities. Leslie M. Scott, who served as editor of the Oregon Historical Quarterly and later as treasurer of Oregon, suggested in a 1924 address that the History of Oregon she wrote while employed by Bancroft might be "the most monumental work on Oregon history." She was included (along with several other women) in a list of "Noted Leaders of the Oregonian's First 100 Years" in 1950.
  Fuller Victor's legacy was invoked in a speech by scholar Terrence O'Donnell at the inaugural Oregon Book Award event in 1987, which also marked the beginning of the annual Frances Fuller Victor Award for Creative Nonfiction. In 2005, the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission selected The River of the West as one of the 100 books that best define the state and its people.
  Beginning in 1951, Randall Mills began researching Fuller Victor's life and work. He enlisted the help of Hazel Emery Mills, his wife; the work became her lifelong passion following Randall's death shortly after the project began. With assistance and encouragement over the years from Thomas Vaughan of the Oregon Historical Society, Constance Bordwell of the University of Oregon, and (after Hazel Mills' death in 1999) Bordwell's assistants Priscilla Knuth and Bruce Taylor Hamilton, and Vaughan's associate Marguerite Wright, a biography was published by the OHS Press in 2003. It was called Frances Fuller Victor: The Witness to America's Westerings. It was attributed to Hazel Mills and Constance Bordwell as authors, with Thomas Vaughan and Marguerite Wright as editors.
  Separately, and without awareness of the Mills–Bordwell project, Jim Martin, a legislative assistant with a background in journalism, took an interest in Fuller Victor in 1976, after having noticed her name on the Capitol's wall. He researched her work for eight years. After searching for a publisher for five years, he published A Bit of Blue: The Life and Work of Frances Fuller Victor, under his own Deep Well Publishing imprint.
  A podcast is rumored to be in development with Brianna Barrett and Jude Brewer, officially funded by a grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council. The show will be a radio drama adaptation of Barrett's historical fiction play based on the life of Fuller Victor, specifically, her years spent working for The Golden Era in San Francisco during the Civil War.
caption: Victor View, a viewpoint at Crater Lake, was formally named in 1945. Fuller Victor visited Crater Lake in 1872.
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