John Bach McMaster

[1][2] His father, a native of New York, was a banker and planter at New Orleans at the beginning of the Civil War.

McMaster is best known for his History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War (1883 sqq.

), a valuable supplement to the more purely political writings of James Schouler, Von Holst and Henry Adams.

[3] His A School History of the United States (1897) was an extremely popular textbook for many years.

[3] His historical work differed from standard practice in that it departed from an exclusively political focus to delve into social history and the lives of ordinary people and also in its use of news papers as sources.