About This Edition
What this site is, where the text comes from, and how to cite it.
The Book
The Great Republic by the Master Historians (1902) tells the story of America in the words of the nineteenth century’s most celebrated historians — an anthology of the best accounts of each episode, from the legends before Columbus to the dawn of the twentieth century, joined by editorial narrative into one continuous history. The eyewitness passages at their strangest are gathered in the Witness Box.
This Edition
This site reproduces the complete text of the original printing, digitized page by page and arranged as 599 short readings across 141 chapters and 8 eras, so you can begin at the beginning and click “next” through the whole story, or drop in anywhere along the timeline. Nothing has been abridged, modernized or cleaned up: the period spelling, punctuation and opinions all stand exactly as printed.
Editorial Policy
The book’s own words are never altered. Where we add anything of our own — context or a caution about dated language — it appears as a clearly marked 2026 Editor’s Note, signed and dated, set apart from the original text. A history published in 1902 reflects the attitudes of its era, not least in its accounts of Native Americans and of slavery; those passages are preserved unchanged as part of the historical record, with a note where one is warranted.
Citing This Edition
The underlying work is in the public domain and may be quoted, taught from and reused freely — see Rights & Reuse below.