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. He 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. He was made an honorary member of the
Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1915. Swartwout was a member of the
U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 1931 to 1936, the
American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the
National Academy of Design. ==Death==