Donald Trump has temporarily removed the iconic Resolute desk, used by many of his predecessors, from the Oval Office, replacing it with the C&O desk, (Chesapeake and Ohio Desk) another historic desk used in the White House.
The Resolute desk was crafted from the oak timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute. The ship was abandoned in the Arctic in 1854 but was later found and refitted by an American whaling ship. It was returned to the United Kingdom as a gesture of goodwill. In 1880, Queen Victoria gifted the desk to President Rutherford B. Hayes as a symbol of friendship between the United States and the United Kingdom. What came to be called, the “Resolute Desk” has been used by several U.S. presidents. It was initially placed in the President’s Office and later moved to the Oval Office during John F. Kennedy’s presidency. It has become a powerful symbol of the U.S. presidency and American history. It represents the enduring friendship between the United States and the United Kingdom, and it has been the backdrop for many significant moments and decisions in American history. Presidents have signed important legislation, addressed the nation, and posed for iconic photographs at the Resolute Desk.
The latter is one of six desks, along with those of C&O, Theodore Roosevelt, Hoover, Johnson and Wilson, that have been placed in the Oval Office as a symbol of the presidency and as a practical work space.
It was Trump himself who explained that the Resolute will be replaced temporarily as it needs to undergo some renovations. During this time, therefore, the MAGA leader will use the C&O desk, which was donated to the White House in 1987, by the GSX Corporation, a railroad transportation company.
According to the White House Historical Association, prior to ’77, only three U.S. leaders never used the Resolute Desk in the West Wing: Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
The first to use the desk in question in the Oval Office was President John F. Kennedy in 1961. After his assassination, the Resolute was displayed at the Smithsonian from 1966 to 1977, until Jimmy Carter brought it back to the White House. In recent years it was used by both Barack Obama, during his two terms in office, and Joe Biden. Trump himself, during his first four years in the White House, between 2017 and 2021, continued to make use of the historic Resolute.
Now, however, at least for some time, the MAGA leader will have to do without one of the White House’s top 90 pieces.
