Background
Calvin, Melvin was born on April 8, 1911 in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. He was the son of Elias and Rose Irene (Hervitz) Calvin. Both Calvin’s parents had emigrated from Russia in the 1880s: his father from an urban area in northern Russia and his mother from a rural region in southern Russia. Calvin’s father had apparently been well-educated before coming to the United States and, in spite of the fact that he ended up as a factory worker, always put a high value on developing intellectual skills. The Calvins moved to Detroit, Michigan, when Melvin was a young boy so that his father could take a job at the Cadillac factory there.