Inside the Museum
Nixon Presidential Library
Updated October 2024
Posted January 2024
Lincoln Sitting Room
Until the early 20th century, this small room on the second floor of the White House originally served as part of the President's suite of working offices.
Until the early 20th century, this small room on the second floor of the White House originally served as part of the President's suite of working offices.
Abraham Lincoln and his staff used it throughout his Presidency. During President Truman's extensive renovations of the late 1940s and early 1950s, the smaller room was made into a parlor - a Sitting Room - for the larger room that became known as the Lincoln Bedroom.
Several decades later, the Lincoln Sitting Room became one of Richard Nixon's favorite spaces in which to work and think. Sitting in his "favorite old brown velvet easy chair," he would cover pages of the ubiquitous yellow notepads, filling them with notes on speeches, outlines of policy goals, and personal words of inspiration. Sometimes he went into the Lincoln Bedroom to pray silently.
Richard Nixon, 1983
On special occasions in times past ... I would stop in this room and have a moment of silent prayer, because I just sort of gathered strength just from being in this room where Lincoln had been.
Lincoln and his Family
