Upon moving into the White House, each president redecorates the Oval Office to make it their own. The president’s desk is perhaps the most important piece of furniture chosen for the room. (1/8)
Image Credit: White House Historical Association
Many American presidents have elected to use historical White House desks for their workspace. (2/8)
The Resolute Desk, for example, was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880, and has been used by many presidents, including John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. (3/8)
Image Credit: WHHA
Meanwhile, a number of early twentieth-century presidents elected to use the Theodore Roosevelt desk, including William Howard Taft, Calvin Coolidge, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. (4/8)
Image Credit: White House Collection/White House Historical Association
President Lyndon B. Johnson chose to bring his own desk to the Oval Office. The mahogany pedestal partner’s desk had been built in the Senate Cabinet Shop and used by Johnson while he served as a Texas senator. (5/8)
Image Credit: White House Historical Association
The desk featured a green leather top which matched his green desk chair and carpeting. Other furniture pieces in Johnson’s Oval Office included three color televisions and a teletype machine, which Johnson used to receive news reports. (6/8)
He also had a portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt hung above the fireplace. Lyndon B. Johnson’s Oval Office desk is pictured here, c. 1964. (7/8)
Vice President John Tyler, a former Democrat from Virginia, ascended to the presidency as a member of the Whig Party following the death of President William Henry Harrison in 1841. (1/6)
Image Credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
As president, Tyler vetoed a bill to recharter the Second Bank of the United States, along with several bills proposed by fellow Whigs and sponsored by Henry Clay, a prominent Whig member of the U.S. Senate. (2/6)
Image Credit: Library of Congress
Following his veto, members of his party expelled Tyler from the Whig Party, and every member of Tyler’s cabinet eventually resigned, with the exception of Secretary of State Daniel Webster (pictured here). (3/6)
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was an avid collector of stamps, coins, first edition books, and naval art. (1/12)
While he is best known for his stamp collecting, President Roosevelt also amassed a collection of over 400 model ships throughout his lifetime and displayed many of them at the White House. (2/12)
Image Credit: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum / NARA
While the president purchased most of his model ships, others were given to him as gifts by family members, friends, admirers, or foreign dignitaries. (3/12)
The Resolute desk is one of the best-known objects in the White House, having been used by many presidents as their Oval Office desk. A brass plaque on the desk reads: (1/6)
Image Credit: White House Historical Association
“The H.M.S. Resolute, forming part of the expedition sent in search of Sir John Franklin in 1852, was abandoned in Latitude 74º 41' N. Longitude 101º 22' W. on 15th May 1854.” (2/6)
“She was discovered and extricated in September 1855, in Latitude 67º N. by Captain Buddington of the United States Whaler George Henry.” (3/6)
Following the British burning of the White House in 1814, the house was reconstructed quickly. When President James Monroe moved into the unfinished White House in October 1817, he was tasked with refurnishing the residence. (1/12)
To demonstrate the grandeur and power of the young nation, Monroe sought many elegant pieces including French-made clocks, mirrors, a china dinner service, and perhaps most famously, the fifty-three-piece set of Bellangé furniture for the Oval Room (today’s Blue Room). (2/12)
This carved and gilded furniture suite was made by Pierre-Antoine Bellangé, who also made furniture for Napoleon. The suite was acquired by American agents Joseph Russell and John LaFarge after Monroe contacted the firm with a list of requests in April 1817. (3/12)
Pictured below is the portrait of Hayne Hudjihini, or Eagle of Delight, painted by Charles Bird King. (1/6)
Image Credit: White House Historical Association
Hudjihini was a member of the Eagle clan of the Jiwere-Nut’achi, or Otoe-Missouria, tribe located in the Great Lakes Region near present-day Nebraska, and the wife of Chief Sumonyeacathee of the Otoe-Missouria Bear clan. (2/6)
While the Otoes and Missourias were related in language and customs and formed a single tribe, they were two distinct people. (3/6)
Innovation has had a home in the Executive Mansion from its very beginning. So has mythology...
According to journalist Henry Louis (H.L.) Mencken, 1917 marked the 75th anniversary of the invention of the bathtub. (1/10)
His work commemorating the occasion, originally published in The New York Evening Post, was titled “A Neglected Anniversary” because no one seemed to bother acknowledging such an important American innovation. (2/10)
Mencken provided a persuasive and seemingly accurate account of how Adam Thompson created the bathing appliance in 1842 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (3/10)