Dear Mr. President: The Letters of Julia Sand

Dear Mr. President: The Letters of Julia Sand is a documentary releasing on May 7, 2025. It centers on the correspondence between Julia Sand, a thirty-year-old New Yorker of no public profile, and Chester Arthur, who assumed the presidency after Charles Guiteau assassinated James Garfield in 1881. Guiteau, a fervent supporter of the spoils system — the practice of awarding government appointments through political patronage rather than merit — killed Garfield in part because he believed Garfield's death would elevate Arthur, a politician whose career had been built entirely within the corrupt machinery of the New York political machine. Sand, contrary to prevailing expectations, believed Arthur was capable of something different. Through her letters, she challenged the new president to dismantle the very system that had put him in power.