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Arnold Gesell and Colleagues Publications collection

 Collection
Call Number: Ms Coll 41

Scope and Contents

Series 1 includes a broad range of publications of Arnold Gesell from 1937 to 1956. They include not only reprints of professional articles, but also popular articles from newspapers, magazines, and newsletters of organizations; popular pamphlets; radio broadcasts; unpublished talks, book reviews by Gesell; clippings of reviews of Gesell's books; and testimony for legislation. There are also some typescripts, possibly unpublished, and a small amount of correspondence and manuscript material related to publications.

Series 2 includes publications, typescripts, and published dissertations of Gesell's students and colleagues at the Clinic of Child Development and the Gesell Institute. This series is much more incomplete than Series 1. These files appear to have been maintained by Louise Bates Ames, Gesell's assistant at the Yale Clinic of Child Development from 1933 to 1948. She received a Ph.D. under Gesell in 1936 and was later one of the founders of the Gesell Institute of Child Development.

Series 3 includes handwritten and typed annotated drafts of several sections of the book The Embryology of Behavior written by Gesell and Catherine S. Amatruda.

Dates

  • 1922-1991
  • Majority of material found within 1930 - 1959

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

The materials are open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Yale does not own copyright.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Donated by the Child Study Center, 2012.

Arrangement

Organized in three series: 1. Publications of Arnold Gesell. 2. Publications of Colleagues and Students. 3. The Embryology of Human Behavior handwritten and annotated drafts. Series 1 is arranged according to the system of the Gesell Institute (see below), roughly chronological. Series 2 is arranged alphabetically by person.

Extent

3 Linear Feet (6 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/med.ms.0041

Abstract

Arnold Gesell was head of the Psycho-Clinic and later of the Clinic of Child Development at the Yale School of Medicine from 1911 to 1948. Some of his former collaborators founded the Gesell Institute for Child Development in 1950 in New Haven to carry on his work. The collection contains non-book publications by Arnold Gesell and his collaborators as well as of some of the staff members of the Gesell Institute. Publications include not only reprints of professional articles, but also popular articles from newspapers, magazines, and newsletters of organizations; radio broadcasts; book reviews by Gesell; clippings of reviews of Gesell's books; and testimony for legislation. There are also some typescripts, possibly unpublished, and a small amount of manuscript material related to publications.

Biographical / Historical

Arnold Lucius Gesell, psychologist, pediatrician, and expert on infant and child development, was born in Alma, Wisconsin on June 21, 1880. He obtained a B. Phil. from the University of Wisconsin in 1903, a Ph.D. in psychology from Clark University in 1906, and an M.D. from Yale in 1915. From 1911 to 1930, he was Director of the Psycho-Clinic, associated with the Department of Pediatrics and the New Haven Dispensary. From 1930 to his retirement in 1948, he was Director Clinic of Child Development, which was initially part of the Institute of Human Relations. In 1948, Gesell’s Clinic was closed and the staff dispersed. In its place, the Child Study Center was established under Milton Senn. Gesell remained a Research Associate in Child Vision at the Child Study Center from 1948 to 1950. Gesell was a pioneer in proposing detailed norms for the development of infants and children . He was also one of the earliest investigators to use motion pictures to capture infant and child behavior for research and education. Children were studied and filmed in within a dome-like structure, where researchers could view them from the outside. Several films were made for a wider audience and distributed through Encyclopedia Brittanica Films. Gesell also created a number of instruments, tests, and scales for examining children. He was the first author of many books co-authored by staff members of the Clinic of Child Development, among them The First Five Years of Life: The Preschool Years (1940), Developmental Diagnosis: Normal and Abnormal Child Development (1941), Infant and Child in the Culture of Today (1943), and The Child from Five to Ten (1946). Many of his articles and some of his books were directed to parents and the general public. In 1950, Frances Ilg, M.D., Louise Bates Ames, Ph.D., and Janet Learned, colleagues and co-authors of Gesell, created the Gesell Institute of Child Development, in New Haven, where they and colleagues published books, research papers, and articles for the public; provided developmental tests; and offered the services of a clinic. Early research at the Gesell Institute focused on the child from ten to sixteen, and on vision. Gesell was associated with the Institute until his death on May 29, 1961 in New Haven.

Custodial History

These materials were maintained by Louise Bates Ames, initially for Arnold Gesell and the Clinic of Child Development. The files may have been brought to the Gesell Institute of Child Development, since Ames continued to add materials and Arnold Gesell borrowed some of them after 1950.

Processing Information

The files arrived in two long storage boxes. There is probably a missing storage container of Gesell reprints before 1937. Originally there was a folder for each reprint containing multiple copies. With a few exceptions, extra copies have been removed and files consolidated.

Title
Guide to the Arnold Gesell and Colleagues Publications Collection
Status
Completed
Author
Finding aid by Toby A Appel
Date
2012
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Part of the Medical Historical Library, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library Repository

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