Nobody expected the vice president, a New York political hack, to be president. And after President James A. Garfield was shot in 1881, nobody expected Chester A. Arthur to become a strong and effective president, a courageous anti-corruption reformer, and an early civil rights advocate. And yet… Despite his promising start as a young man, by his early fifties Chester A. Arthur was known as the … Arthur was known as the crooked crony of New York machine boss Roscoe Conkling. For years Arthur had been perceived as unfit to govern, not only by critics and the vast majority of his fellow citizens but by his own conscience. As President James A. Garfield struggled for his life, Arthur knew better than his detractors that he failed to meet the high standard a president must uphold.
And yet, from the moment President Arthur took office, he proved to be not just honest but brave, going up against the very forces that had controlled him for decades. He surprised everyone–and gained many enemies–when he swept house and took on corruption, civil rights for blacks, and issues of land for Native Americans.
A mysterious young woman deserves much of the credit for Arthur’s remarkable transformation. Julia Sand, a bedridden New Yorker, wrote Arthur nearly two dozen letters urging him to put country over party, to find “the spark of true nobility” that lay within him. At a time when women were barred from political life, Sand’s letters inspired Arthur to transcend his checkered past–and changed the course of American history.
This beautifully written biography tells the dramatic, untold story of a virtually forgotten American president. It is the tale of a machine politician and man-about-town in Gilded Age New York who stumbled into the highest office in the land, only to rediscover his better self when his nation needed him.
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The book was also an Unexpected pleasure!
Reads like a novel, only it’s non-fiction!
It’s on the level of ‘the more things change, the more they remain the same’. It’s the time shortly after the Civil War, Grant is President, Tammany Hall is at it’s peak, Chester Arthur is one of it’s stars and graft & corruption are running rampant. Very much like today. It’s very like reading current events only over 100 years ago!
I recommend the book highly as it’s entertaining fact, a major twist in the story of how Arthur became President, turned things around in spite of his cronies and how he never really got the credit he deserved for doing a pretty decent job of cleaning up the government.
Great book about a fairly unknown President. Not only is this a thorough examination of the life of Chester Arthur, but it also a lesson in pervasive government corruption that resulted in Civil Service Reform. The author goes into exquisite detail highlighting the influence of Julia Sands, a home-bound invalid who through her letters convinced Arthur to find his place in history. This the poster child of the spoils system became a champion of needed reforms.
A good Presidential History piece for any student of the American Presidency.
Poorly thought through.
A rather fascinating story of a minor president made interesting by the author’s imaginative approach to the subject.
I enjoy presidential biographies and this one did not disappoint. This book portrayed Arthur as he really was–“warts and all.” I have always thought of Arthur as a rather weak character, but this biography showed that he did have some backbone in standing up to dishonest politicians when he became president.
Having not known a great deal about Chester Arthur, this was an easy to read, not lengthy biography. The book was informative.
A rare look into the life and Presidency of Chester Arthur.
I really enjoyed this book.
I have always had an affinity for Chester Arthur since my days attending Union College in Schenectady and admiring his statue standing behind the library — the only Union alumnus to become president. I had known something of his history, that he was poorly regarded because of his political machine connections, and that when he was thrust into the White House, that he put political bosses behind him and became a really moral and good president.
What amazed me the most was the enormous amount of political machine pressure that he continued to resist and disregard once he became president.
It’s a good read about a lesser known president that in 3 short years brought govt. management practices where none existed prior
I like books about interesting but generally forgotten episodes or individuals in history. A few years ago, Destiny of the Republic, chronicling the life, times, and assassination of Arthur’s predecessor, James Garfield, captured my attention. The President is a Sick Man, in which Arthur’s successor, Grover Cleveland, underwent secret surgery on a boat likewise intrigued me.
The Unexpected President is a bit of both. Chester A. Arthur was the ultimate machine politician and a man whom virtually no one in the country (aside from his New York cronies) wished to see ascend the presidency upon the death of Garfield. As Scott S. Greenberger illustrates, once he was president, though, Arthur genuinely seems to have used the position to right past wrongs, implementing far reaching civil service reforms, and pushing – though admittedly without either force or success – for stronger civil rights laws. As he did so, he was urged on by the invalided Julia Sand who took it upon herself to be the voice of his conscience in a series of (honestly, rather long winded and presumptuous) letters.
Whether owing to Miss Sand’s urging, his roots as an abolitionist’s son, or a desire to honor the memory of his dearly departed wife, Arthur determined to be his own man. Perhaps this was also made somewhat easier by the knowledge that he was dying. Yes, dying. In the days before round-the-clock media coverage, presidents routinely hid any manner of personal details, from mistresses to mania, and so it was with Arthur who spent the better part of his presidency in the grips of Bright’s Disease.
Greenberger has written a succinct and compact history of Arthur’s term in office, as well as the factors that shaped him prior to the presidency. As he notes, the dearth of materials contributes to the volume’s brevity: Arthur, perhaps ashamed of his pre-presidency machinations, burned almost all of his personal files and correspondence in the days before his death. That said, by its shortness, The Unexpected President perhaps lends itself to a wider audience than it would otherwise. Admittedly, this is still a bit of a history nerd’s read. I am a proud history nerd and enjoyed it greatly; I can easily recommend it to my fellow history-lovers.
(This review was originally published at http://www.thisyearinbooks.com/2018/03/the-unexpected-president-life-and-times.html.)
interesting and historically accurate.
Educational and well-written.
I loved hearing about the young woman who became Arthur’s conscience. I enjoyed reading how Arthur rewrote his life. This book was well written and I appreciated how the author made the characters seem very real.
It is always good to know something about our past leaders. Before reading this book all I knew about President Arthurwas that he had been the customs agent at the port of New York.thank you for presenting it in this edition.
I already reviewed it.
This biography illuminates an important but under-reported part of US history. The corruption of the post civil war era is an illustration of what happens when the government is taken over by those who do not have the basic interests of the American people at heart but rather self-aggrandizement. The methods are different now, but no less debilitating. Arthur is a corrupt New York politician who grows and changes when he is unexpectedly thrust into the presidency of the United States. Good Read.