Charles Eames, born in 1907 in Saint Louis, Missouri, studied architecture at Washington University in St. Louis and opened his own architectural practice in 1930 with Charles M. Gray. In 1935 he opened another architectural studio with Robert T. Walsh and in 1938 he received a scholarship to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, where he taught design a year later. In 1940 he became head of the industrial design department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.