Frances Ilg

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.

Ilg adopted a daughter, Tordis, in 1938. Ilg died in 1981, aged 78 years, while vacationing in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin.

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. She also wrote a newspaper column, "Child Behavior", which was syndicated nationally. 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. "We have been over-emphasizing the gifted child," she said. In 1957 she received the William Freeman Snow Award from the American Social Hygiene Association, for "distinguished service to humanity."

Frances Ilg was born in Oak Park, Illinois, the daughter of Joseph Frank Ilg and Leonore Petersen Ilg. Her father worked for the railroad; her maternal grandparents were born in Norway. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1925. She trained as a physician at Cornell Medical School, earning her medical degree in 1929.