On a recent October morning in the White House mailroom, on the ground floor of the Executive Office Building just beside a loading dock, 10 interns sat at two long tables, each trying to get through 300 letters. Grab a bundle, sit down and read. It was pretty straightforward: Read. A girl doesn’t want her mom to be deported, and can the president please help? A guy finally admits to his wife that he’s gay, and now he would like to tell the president. A car dealer writes to say his bank is shutting him down, and thanks for nothing, Mr. President. A vet who can’t stop seeing what he saw in Iraq writes a barely intelligible rant that makes his point all the more intelligible: “Help.” An inmate admits to selling crack to all those people but he wants the president to know he is not a lost cause: “I have dreams Mr. President, big dreams.” A man can’t find a job. A woman can’t find a job. A teacher with advanced certification can’t find a damn job. A lesbian couple just got married; thank you, Mr. President. A man sends his medical bills, a woman sends her student-loan statements, a child sends her drawing of a cat, a mother sends her teenager’s report card — straight A’s, isn’t that awesome, Mr. President?

This pile, that pile, another pile over there; pull from the middle if you want. The narrative was sloppy and urgent, America talking all at once. No filter. The handwriting, the ink, the choice of letterhead — every letter was a real object from a real person, and now you were holding it, and so now you were responsible for it.

Mr. Obama — My President, In 2007 I was proud of my hands. They had veneered calluses where my palms touched my fingers. Cuts and scrapes were never severe. Splinters and blisters merely annoyed me. With a viselike grip and dexterous touch my hands were heat-tolerant and cold-ignorant. I was nimble when whittling or when sharpening an ax. I could exfoliate with an open palm when my wife’s back itched or my cat arched for a rub. My nails were usually stained after a chore; they were tougher, not cracked, seldom manicured. My hands defined my work, passions, my life. After 23 years as a land surveyor and nearly 2 years unemployed, I miss my career and my old hands. I kneel nights and clutch new hands together, praying we all can recover what seems lost. May God guide your hands to mold our future. Thank you for listening to the Citizen I am,

Bobby Ingram

Oxford, Miss.

At the beginning of his first term, President Obama said he wanted to read his mail. He said he would like to see 10 letters a day. After that, the 10LADs, as they came to be called, were put in a purple folder and added to the back of the briefing book he took with him to the residence on the second floor of the White House each night.

Choosing which letters made it to the president started here in the Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House, in the “hard-mail room,” which had the tired, unkempt look of a college study hall during finals — paper everywhere, files stacked along walls, bundles under tables, boxes propping up computer monitors dotted with Post-its, cables hanging. Hushed young men in ties and hushed young women in sweater sets and hose — you dress up if you work for the White House — held pencils between their teeth or behind their ears, all of them with their heads bent, reading. There was an equally crowded work space, “the email room,” in a satellite office just outside the White House gates on Jackson Place. All in all, the Office of Presidential Correspondence — “O.P.C.” was what everyone called it — required the orchestration of 50 staff members, 36 interns and a rotating roster of 300 volunteers to keep up with about 10,000 letters and messages every day.

Anyone could nominate a letter or email for inclusion in the day’s 10LADs. They called it “sampling.” To sample a letter in the hard-mail room, you just wrote “sample” (in pencil) on the top left corner of a letter, and then you walked it over and dropped it in the wooden inbox with a sticker on it that said “Samples.” About 2 percent of the total incoming mail ended up there. Did the letter move you in some particular way? Don’t overthink it. Sample it. The bar was kept deliberately low. These were people writing, and you’re a person reading, and the president is a person. Just keep remembering that, and you’ll be fine.

Dear Mr. President, It’s late in the evening here in Oahu, and the sun will soon be sinking behind the horizon onto the ocean. [ ... ] Sir, I was injured in Afghanistan in 2011. [ ... ] I wasn’t afraid in Afghanistan, but I am horrified at the thought of my future. I want to serve my country, make a difference and live up to the potential my family sees in me. I am scared, I think, because I have no plan on what employment to pursue. It is something that is extremely difficult to me; and with my family leaving the island soon I am truly lost. Sir, all my life I’ve tried to find what a Good man is, and be that man, but I realize now life is more difficult for some. I’m not sure where I am going, and it is something that I cannot shake. [ ... ] Sincerely,

Patrick Holbrook

Oahu, Hawaii

“You get attached,” Jamira Chick, an intern, told me. She had her hair bundled tightly on top of her head and wore a pretty print top. She said that one time she opened a letter from a woman who was writing the president to say she had lost a family member to gun violence. “She had enclosed photos,” Chick said. “Just blood all over in a car. ... ” She tapped her eraser on the table, up and down on the table.