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Francis Parkman (1823-1893) was an American historian, best known as the author of The Oregon Trail (1847) and his monumental seven volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as history and especially as literature, although the biases of his work have met with criticism. He was also a leading horticulturist, briefly a Professor of Horticulture at Harvard University and the first leader of the Arnold Arboretum, originator of several flowers, and author of several books on the topic. Parkman has been hailed as one of America's first great historians and as a master of narrative history. His work has been praised by historians who have published essays in new editions of his work. Other works include: The Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851), Vassall Morton (1856), Pioneers of France in the New World (1865), The Book of Roses (1866), The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century (1867), and Count Frontenac and New France Under Louis XIV (1877).

Francis Parkman, Jr. (September 16, 1823 - November 8, 1893) was an American historian, best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his monumental seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as historical sources and as literature. He was also a leading horticulturist, briefly a professor of Horticulture at Harvard University and author of several books on the topic. Parkman was a trustee of the Boston Athenæum from 1858 until his death in 1893Parkman was born in Boston, Massachusetts to the Reverend Francis Parkman Sr. (1788-1853), a member of a distinguished Boston family, and Caroline (Hall) Parkman. The senior Parkman was minister of the Unitarian New North Church in Boston from 1813 to 1849. As a young boy, "Frank" Parkman was found to be of poor health, and was sent to live with his maternal grandfather, who owned a 3,000-acre (12 km2) tract of wilderness in nearby Medford, Massachusetts, in the hopes that a more rustic lifestyle would make him more sturdy. In the four years he stayed there, Parkman developed his love of the forests, which would animate his historical research. Indeed, he would later summarize his books as "the history of the American forest." He learned how to sleep and hunt, and could survive in the wilderness like a true pioneer. He later even learned to ride bareback, a skill that would come in handy when he found himself living with the Sioux.