New Hampshire Historical Society
Detailed Involvements
Events with rich location context
The New Hampshire Historical Society is invoked as the repository holding the Bartlet family Bible — a local, personal counterpoint to the national George Washington Bible and the practical alternative selected by the President.
Implied quiet, archival, reverent—contrasts with Oval Office bustle.
Source location for an alternative ceremonial Bible and a tangible link to Bartlet's regional identity.
Represents personal history and authenticity as opposed to ceremonial grandeur.
Requires staff coordination to retrieve archival items; not immediately on hand in Washington.
The New Hampshire Historical Society is the repository that holds the Bartlet Bible and enforces preservation protocols; it exists off-screen but exerts authority through Mr. Cravenly's phone call and the vault requirement that denies the loan.
Implied institutional, careful, and protective — a controlled archival environment prioritizing conservation over ceremonial requests.
Custodian of the artifact and the institutional actor whose rules create the scene's conflict.
Represents public stewardship of private heritage and the friction between personal legacy and institutional care.
Strict preservation controls and protocol-driven access; artifact cannot be removed for public ceremony per their standards.
The New Hampshire Historical Society functions off-screen as custodian: its policies and staff (represented by Mr. Cravenly) enforce conservation rules and deny loaning the Bartlet family Bible, provoking the President's irritation and exposing tensions between public institutions and private legacy.
Implied hushed, reverent archive space with strict preservation protocols and climate control.
Custodial repository whose conservation rules directly constrain presidential ceremonial plans.
Represents institutional inertia and the public ownership of private history, complicating personal claims within public office.
Strict: climate-controlled vault access limited; artifacts not loaned for high-risk use.
Events at This Location
Everything that happens here
In a brisk Oval Office morning, Bartlet toggles between the intimacy of inaugural ritual and the exigency of foreign policy. He asks for the foreign‑policy text on the prompter, derides …
A small, domestic quarrel over the Bartlet family Bible exposes Bartlet's private need for ritual even as the world burns. Charlie informs the President that the New Hampshire Historical Society …
While fending off a petty but personal obstacle—New Hampshire's refusal to loan the Bartlet family Bible for the inauguration—President Bartlet's private ritual is abruptly overshadowed by news of a mass …