Arnold Gesell and Colleagues Publications collection

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.