TILTON, Edward Lippincott (1861-1933), a prominent architect in New York City and a specialist in the design of library buildings in the United States and Canada. He served as architect to The Carnegie Foundation, and advised Andrew Carnegie on the design of dozens of public and university library buildings. Born in New York City on 19 October 1861, he trained in the office of McKim, Mead & White, a leading firm there, then moved to Paris, France to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1887-90 (E.A. Delaire, Les Architectes Eleves de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts 1793-1907, 413). After returning to America in 1890, he formed a partnership in New York City with William A. Boring (1859-1937), as Boring & Tilton, Architects, which enjoyed success for more than twenty-five years. Their major works included institutional, civic and theatre buildings, but their specialty was the design of library buildings situated in more than sixty town and cities throughout the United States. When W.L. Boring retired in 1915, Tilton continued to work under his own name (in 1915-1920), and then, after 1920, in partnership with Alfred T. Githens. Their firm is also credited with designs for several substantial private houses on Long Island, N.Y. (Robert MacKay, Anthony Baker & Carol Traynor, Long Island Country Houses and Their Architects 1860-1940, 1997, 71-73, illus.)
In Canada, Tilton completed the refined Beaux-Arts design for the Carnegie Library in Lethbridge, Alberta, as well as the Collegiate Gothic design for the Douglas Library at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He joined the American Inst. of Architects in 1900, and was elected as a Fellow of the A.I.A. in 1908. Tilton died in Scarsdale, N.Y. on 5 January 1933 (obit. New York Times, 6 Jan. 1933, 19; Architectural Forum [New York], lviii, Feb. 1933, 12; biog. and port. National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. A, 1930, 319; H. Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects, 1956, 601-02).
(with Whiddington & Fry) LETHBRIDGE, ALTA., Carnegie Library, 3rd Avenue South at 6th Street South, 1921-22; and now occupied by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (historical article in the Lethbridge Herald, 25 Oct. 1935, 8)
(with Shepard & Calvin) KINGSTON, ONT., Douglas Library, Queen's University, University Street at Union Street, designed 1916; built 1923-24; renovated and restored 1994-96 (Const., ix, March 1916, 98; xviii, Dec. 1925, 362-73, illus. & descrip.; xxiv, Nov. 1931, 358-60, illus. & descrip.; R.A.I.C. Journal, ii, Nov./Dec. 1925, 207, 220-21, illus.; dwgs. Queen's University Archives, Kingston)