Resolute Desk History
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 as the Oval Office desk. Per Resolute Desk History It was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was built from the timbers of the British Arctic Exploration ship Resolute. Many presidents since Hayes have used the desk at various locations in the White House, but it was Jackie Kennedy who first brought the desk into the Oval Office in 1961 for President John F. Kennedy. It was removed from the White House for only one time, and this was after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, when President Johnson allowed the desk to go on a traveling exhibition with the Kennedy Presidential Library. After this it was on display in the Smithsonian Institution. President Jimmy Carter brought the desk back to the Oval Office, where President Ronald Reagan, President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush and now President Barack Obama have used it in this, its most famous location.