The Oregon Trail

This popular novel by Francis Parkman describes Parkman's two month trip through the first third of the Oregon Trail in the summer of 1846. Valued as an important historical account, this text was originally published in 21 serial segments in Knickerbocker's Magazine. The novel contains many illustrations of the West, Indians and other symbolic images of the frontier. Herman Melville once commented that the book contained demeaning information about American Indians.