Born in Alma, Wisconsin, Arnold Gesell was a psychologist and physician who influenced the way many Americans thought about children’s development. “Nothing in the field of social welfare needs more deliberate and conscious regulation than child adoption,” he declared, neatly summarizing the goals of adoption reformers during the first half of the twentieth century. Throughout his long career at Yale University, Gesell championed minimum standards and professionally governed family formation. He worked with the most important advocacy organizations of his day, including the U.S. Children’s Bureau and the Child Welfare League of America. Gesell spoke and wrote widely on such topics as placement age, preplacement testing, and clinical supervision in adoption. He favored the confidentiality of adoption records. His public reputation was a hallmark of his career and he tried hard to popularize methods of scientific selection and matching in adoption. Like other adoption reformers, Gesell believed that adoption agencies run by trained experts would arrange adoptions far superior to those arranged through baby farms or black market adoptions based on commerce or sentiment.