Egerton Swartwout

Egerton Swartwout
Born	March 3, 1870 Fort Wayne, Indiana
Died	February 18, 1943 age 71 New York, NY
Occupation	Architect

Egerton Swartwout (March 3, 1870 – February 18, 1943) was an American architect, most notably associated with his New York architectural firm Tracy and Swartwout and McKim, Mead & White. His buildings, numbering over 100, were typically in the Beaux-Arts style. 6 of his buildings are recognized on the National Register of Historic Places and 3 others are given landmark status by their City Commission's

Egerton was the first son of Satterlee Swartwout (grandson of Brigadier General Robert Swartwout) and Charlotte Elizabeth Edgerton (daughter of Ohio Representative, Alfred Peck Edgerton). Egerton married British-born Isabelle Geraldine Davenport, June 20, 1904 in Cambridge, England. They had two children, Robert Egerton Swartwout (1905-1951) and Charlotte Elizabeth (b. 1908). Robert Egerton Swartwout (1905-1951), better known as R.E. Swartwout, was an author and the first American to cox the Cambridge University rowing team to victory over Oxford University, in 1930.

Egerton Swartwout graduated from Yale University in 1891 with a B.A. degree. He had no formal training in architecture, but spent two summers during college working in small architecture offices. After graduating from Yale he presented a letter of introduction to Stanford White of McKim, Mead and White. White took him into the firm as an unpaid student, and after a few months he was hired as a draftsman.

Swartwout spent ten years at the firm and rose through the ranks of draftsmen. He worked primarily for Charles McKim, assisting in the design of several of McKim's major buildings, including the Low Memorial Library at Columbia University. The four internal staircases at the corners of the rotunda leading to four exits were Swartwout's contribution. Swartwout wrote in his memoir that he later regretted the idea, because when he used the library he could never manage to find the same stairs going down that he had used to come up, and when he was in a hurry to catch a train he often found himself leaving by the wrong exit in the rear of the building.

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