Borris Frederick Skinner was born March 20, 1904, in the small town of Susquehanna; and he died in August of 1990 at the age of 76. Skinner's father was a lawyer, and his mother, as were many mothers at that time was a homemaker, who stayed home and raised Borris and his brother, who later died at the young age of 16. As a young adult, Skinner loved to write, he enjoyed writing poems and short stories. Skinner then went to Hamilton College in New York where he obtained his Bachelor's degree in English.

Oddly enough, Skinner resigned from teaching English and moved to Green Village, New York. Not long afterwards, Skinner decided to go back to school, except this time he went to Harvard, where he received his master's degree in psychology, in 1930. Just one year later in 1931 he received his doctorate. In 1936, he moved to Minneapolis to teach at the University...