Another early commission was for a set of twelve larger-than-life-size statues of Presbyterian clergymen for the facade of the Witherspoon Building (1898–99) in Philadelphia.

[1]: 171 In 1912, he was named acting-chief (under Karl Bitter) of the sculpture program for the Panama-Pacific Exposition, a World's Fair to open in San Francisco, California, in February 1915.

He obtained a studio in NYC and there employed the services of model Audrey Munson who posed for him – Star Maiden (1913–1915) – and a host of other artists.

Hermon Atkins MacNeil and Calder were commissioned to create larger-than-life-size sculptures for the Washington Square Arch in New York City.

Two of his major commissions of the 1920s were the Swann Memorial Fountain (1920–1924) in Logan Circle, and the architectural sculpture program for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (completed 1931), both in Philadelphia.

He was one of a dozen sculptors invited to compete in Oklahoma's Pioneer Woman statue competition in 1926–27,[3] which was won by Bryant Baker.

Standing before the Hallgrímskirkja, the Lutheran cathedral in Reykjavík, and facing west toward the Atlantic Ocean and Greenland, the Leif Eriksson Memorial (1929–1932) has become as iconic for Icelanders as the Statue of Liberty is for Americans.

4 Calder married portrait painter Nanette Lederer on February 22, 1895, and they lived in Philadelphia for the first decade of their marriage.

[1]: 171  Calder contracted tuberculosis in 1905, and he and his wife moved to Arizona for a year, leaving the children with friends (to protect them from the disease).