Resolute desk: Difference between revisions

President Barack Obama sitting at the Resolute desk in 2009.

The Resolute desk is a large, nineteenth-century partners' desk often chosen by presidents of the United States for use in the White House Oval Office. It was a present from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was built from the timbers of the British barque-rigged ship Resolute. Every president since Hayes, except Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford, has used the desk. President George H. W. Bush had the desk moved to the Treaty Room in the Executive Residence because he preferred the desk he used when he was vice president; later, President Bill Clinton returned the desk to the Oval Office.

History

A gift to the Queen

HMS Resolute was part of a four-ship squadron under Edward Belcher sent in the early 1850s to search for famed English explorer Sir John Franklin, who was searching for the Northwest Passage to Asia. The Resolute and one of her sister ships became lodged in the Arctic ice, and after two full seasons, remained locked in an ice field. Following the second summer, the commander of the expedition instructed the crews of the two ships to board the two ships that lay outside the ice and sail back to England.

After their return, Belcher was court-martialed for abandoning a seaworthy vessel, as the Resolute broke loose of the ice the subsequent summer and was found by an American whaling vessel captained by James Buddington. The Resolute was towed into port and purchased by Congress for $40,000 and refitted. The Resolute was presented to Queen Victoria on December 17, 1856 as a token of peace. The Resolute served in the Royal Navy for 23 years following its return.

A gift in return

When the ship was decommissioned in 1879, the British government arranged for two desks to be made from its timbers. The desks were built by William Evenden, a skilled joiner employed at the Royal Naval Dockyard in Chatham. One was presented to President Hayes on 23 November 1880 and other one is kept in Buckingham Palace, London.

A plate on the front of the desk bears the following inscription:

H.M.S. RESOLUTE forming part of the expedition sent in search of SIR JOHN FRANKLIN IN 1852, was abandoned in latitude 74 degrees 41 minutes N longitude 101 degrees 22 minutes W on 15th May 1854. She was discovered and extricated in September 1855 in latitude 67 degrees N by Captain Buddington of the United States Whaler GEORGE HENRY.

The ship was purchased, fitted out and sent to England as a gift to HER MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA by the PRESIDENT AND PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES as a token of goodwill & friendship. This table was made from her timbers when she was broken up, and is presented by the QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN & IRELAND to the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES as a memorial of the courtesy and loving kindness which dictated the offer of the gift of the RESOLUTE.

The desk was first commonly used by the president in his private study in the residence either in the present Yellow Oval Room or the Treaty Room. President John F. Kennedy first placed it in the Oval Office in 1961. Some presidents, such as George H. W. Bush, have used the desk in their private study rather than the Oval Office.

The desk has been in the Oval Office for the past 16 years, serving Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and current president Barack Obama.

Modifications

The desk has been modified twice. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a hinged front panel in order to hide his wheelchair. The panel was commissioned in 1944 but was not delivered until 1945, following Roosevelt's death. President Truman had the panel installed anyway. The panel features the presidential seal—one of only four in the White House that have the eagle's head turned towards the 13 arrows in the eagle's left talon, as opposed to the now-official arrangement with the eagle turned towards the olive branch in the right talon with the 13 leaves.

The second modification to the desk was made under Ronald Reagan. President Reagan used a chair he had brought from the capitol in California; it was tall enough that his knees bumped into the desk when he moved. As a result, the desk was raised two inches to accommodate Reagan and his chair; this was achieved by adding a separate, uniform base to the desk.

Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter

When president Lyndon B. Johnson took office in 1963, he found he was too large for the desk, and instead commissioned a plainer replacement which was built for him by the Senate cabinet shop. Richard Nixon, who succeeded Johnson in 1969, intended to use the desk of former president Woodrow Wilson, although due to a mix-up he served his term with the desk of former vice-president Henry Wilson.. Gerald Ford, who succeeded to the presidency in 1974 following the resignation of Nixon, followed Nixon's precedent. Jimmy Carter, Ford's successor, returned the desk to the Oval Office, where it remained until George H. W. Bush had it removed. Bill Clinton subsequently brought it back where it has remained.

Obama

In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited President Barack Obama and gave him an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the HMS Gannet, a sister ship to The Resolute, which was used in anti-slavery patrols along the coast of Africa, and acted to rescue people from Obama's father's homeland of Kenya. At the same time, Brown gave Obama the original framed commissioning papers for The Resolute.

Replicas

There are exact replicas of the Resolute desk on display in at least five presidential libraries. The desk at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library was recreated by Robert Whitley. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California and the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, include replicas of the Resolute desk. The desks at both the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas and the George and Barbara Bush Center at the University of New England, Maine were produced by History Company of Ithaca, New York at the Kittinger Company of Buffalo, New York. A video clip of the desk in production can be viewed at www.historycompany.com.

A few independent museums also display replicas, including the American Presidential Museum, a gallery and museum of American presidents, in Branson, Missouri; The Quality West Wing Foundation Museum in Corona, CA , a children's educational program focusing on U.S. government, history and the Presidency;[1] the Treehouse Children's Museum, in Ogden, Utah, which features a small-scale Oval Office; and a full-scale replica of the Oval Office open to the public at the American Village in Montevallo, Alabama.

Popular culture

Replicas of the Resolute desk have appeared in many movies. The desk was a key plot device in National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, in which a secret compartment in the desk contained pieces of a clue to the location of treasure. The film also features another desk made from HMS Resolute situated in Buckingham Palace which was made for Queen Victoria.

See also

• Bureau du Roi
• Desk of Books
• Henry VIII's writing desk
• United Kingdom–United States relations

• John Jr. plays under the desk of his father, President John F. Kennedy
  John Jr. plays under the desk of his father, President John F. Kennedy
• 
  Letter from outgoing President Bush to incoming President Obama, left on the Resolute desk.
• 
  President Barack Obama examines the Resolute Desk on March 3, 2009, while visiting with Caroline Kennedy in the Oval Office.
• 
  British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher reads the inscription on the front of the desk in 1979.
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  Model of the Resolute desk in the recreated Oval Office at the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum
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  Resolute Desk in 1981.
• 
  Jules Cambon, the French Ambassador in US, signing the memorandum of ratification on behalf of Spain in 1899.

References

Sources consulted and recommended reading

• Abbott James A., and Elaine M. Rice. Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration. Van Nostrand Reinhold: 1998. ISBN 0-442-02532-7.
• Matthews, Elizabeth. HMS Resolute. Auxilium ab Alto Press: 2007. ISBN 978-0755203963.
• Monkman, Betty C. The White House: The Historic Furnishing & First Families. Abbeville Press: 2000. ISBN 0-7892-0624-2.
• Sandler, Martin W. Resolute: The Epic Search for the Northwest Passage and John Franklin, and the Discovery of the Queen's Ghost Ship. Sterling: 2006. ISBN 978-1402740855.
• Seale, William. The President's House. White House Historical Association and the National Geographic Society: 1986. ISBN 0-912308-28-1.
• Seale, William, The White House: The History of an American Idea. White House Historical Association: 1992, 2001. ISBN 0-912308-85-0.
• The White House: An Historic Guide. White House Historical Association and the National Geographic Society: 2001. ISBN 0-912308-79-6.

Endnotes

External links

• John F. Kennedy, Jr. peeking out of "secret door" in Resolute desk
• Online White House Museum page on the Resolute desk
• The Resolute desk is at 38.89734°N 77.03742°W / 38.89734; -77.03742