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I was born March 20, 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. My parents were Grace and William Skinner. I had one brother named Edward who died at the age of 16 of a cerebral aneurysm. At first I wanted to become a writer so I attended Hamilton College in New York. I recieve a B.A. in English Literature in 1926. Once I graduated, I went back to my parents house for a year to try to become a writer of fiction. I found out that I had little world expirience and no strong personal perspective from which to write. During this time in which I called "the dark period", I found a copy of Bertrand Russell's recently published book An Outline of Philosophy. Russell discusses the behaviorist philosophy of psychologist John Watson. After reading this, I decided to leave writing and look for an admission as a graduate student in psychology at Harvard University. After I graduated, I invented the operant conditioning chamber and cumulative recorder. I received a Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard in 1931 and stayed there as a researcher until 1936. I then taught at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and later at Indiana University. There, I was chair of the Psychology Department from 1946-1947, before returning to Harvard as a tenured professor in 1948. I remained there for the rest of my career. In 1936,I married Yvonne Blue. We had two daughters, Julie and Deborah. I died August 18, 1990 of leukemia at the age of 86. I am buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusettes.