Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod. A show about the past rediscovered.

President Ulysses S. Grant was a Civil War colossus. He vanquished the Confederacy on the battlefield.

He won the presidency. He beat his alcoholism. It seemed like he could conquer anything.

Well, anything except job seekers.

See, Grant was president during a time when anyone could enter the White House.

And they did.

People would walk right into the White House to ask the president to find them a job.

Incredible.

But while Grant had an impressive resume on the battlefield, he was known to be a bit of a patsy when it came to helping

job hunters. On any given day, job seekers would clog the corridors in the White House

staircases. He told his sister once that he could never get any alone time because

everyone was constantly asking him for jobs. That's according to biographer Ron Cherno.

In his book Grant, the historian wrote that strangers, even relatives, ask Grant for jobs.

The requests weren't only for high-level posts in the cabinet.

They were also interested in jobs like revenue collector, postmaster, custom collector. And

it turned out Grant wasn't a great judge of character. His presidency was tainted by nepotism

and bad appointments. Grant's wife's family benefited greatly from his presidency.

He could look all across the country and find in-laws in government posts.

A bank examiner in Missouri, a marshal in the nation's capital, a port collector in New Orleans, to name a few.

Grant's performance as an employer made a big impact on the federal

government. On the bright side, he named African Americans, Native Americans, and Jews to federal

positions. Under his presidency, Washington, D.C. evolved into a modern city with paved sidewalks,

...