Alexander Calder. one of the world's most favored and innovative American artists, was born July 22,1898, at Lawton, Pennsylvania. The descendant of two generations of artists, Calder's father, A, Stirling Calder (1870-1945), and his scottish grandfather, Alexander Milne Calder (1848-1923), were sculptors of the Academician tradition. His mother was a painter. Throughout his youthhe enjoyed and artistic environment but his recognizable mechanical ingenuity pointed toward engineering. He received a degree in mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1919. This background has been an important factor in his later sculpture and its enormous contribution to contemporary art.
-from Carnegie Magazine 1992