Gideon Bible used by Harry S. Truman

The Gideon Bible used by Harry S. Truman was a small personal-scale Bible that reappeared at his second inauguration, joining that public ceremony to the very different circumstances of April 12, 1945. Set atop a much larger Bible, it became a tangible marker of continuity between the two occasions.

Appearance at the Inauguration

On January 20, 1949, Truman took the presidential oath outdoors at the Capitol, with his left hand resting on two Bibles. The larger was a facsimile of the Gutenberg Bible, a gift from the people of Independence; on top of it lay the same small Gideon edition that had been used on April 12, 1945. The contrast in scale made the small volume visible within an otherwise imposing ceremony of family, officials, columns, and dome.

A Repeated Oath

After completing the oath, Truman bent quickly and kissed the Bible, in a gesture compared to Andrew Jackson’s at his inauguration. The account does not specify which of the two Bibles he kissed. It does establish that the Gideon edition was present for the ceremony and that it had also served under different circumstances on April 12, 1945, giving the object a recurring place at moments of presidential transition.

Significance

The book’s significance rests on its documented reuse rather than on any stated explanation from Truman. In 1949 it sat above a civic gift from his hometown, while its earlier appearance recalled the day he first assumed the presidency. The small Bible thus connected a sudden succession with an inauguration in his own right: two distinct moments, joined by the return of the same object.