Frances Ilg | |
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Born | 1902 Oak Park, Illinois |
Died | July 26, 1981 Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin |
Occupation(s) | Pediatrician, college professor, writer |
Frances Lillian Ilg (1902– July 26, 1981) was an American pediatrician and professor at Yale University. She was an expert in infant and child development, as co-founder and director of the Gesell Institute of Child Development. [1]
Frances Ilg was born in Oak Park, Illinois, the daughter of Joseph Frank Ilg and Leonore Petersen Ilg. Her father worked for the railroad; [2] her maternal grandparents were born in Norway. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1925. [3] She trained as a physician at Cornell Medical School, earning her medical degree in 1929. [1]
Ilg was an assistant professor of child development of Yale University from 1937 to 1947. In 1950, she co-founded the Gesell Institute in New Haven with two colleagues, psychologist Louise Bates Ames and Janet Learned Rodell. [4] She also wrote a newspaper column, "Child Behavior", which was syndicated nationally. [5] In the 1950s and 1960s she counseled parents to "enjoy their children" and "guard their sense of fun and sense of humor"; she also advised school districts to consider emotional maturity as well as intellectual development in grade placements. [6] "We have been over-emphasizing the gifted child," she said. [7] In 1957 she received the William Freeman Snow Award from the American Social Hygiene Association, for "distinguished service to humanity." [8]
Ilg adopted a daughter, Tordis, in 1938. [9] Ilg died in 1981, aged 78 years, while vacationing in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin. [5]