At the beginning there was the desk. Actually 48 desks that New York cabinet maker Thomas Constantine made for the Senate Chamber at newly reconstructed Capitol building in 1819... n 100 years the space for books was doubled and ventilation was added to the work space as you can see from the second and third image of the evolution of the Senator’s desk. The things really got out of control at the beginning of the twentieth century. The tiny red mahogany desks were the Senate primary working space until the first Senate office building opened in 1909...There was also more...