[2][3] Gesell was born in Alma, Wisconsin, and later wrote an article analyzing his experiences there entitled "The Village of a Thousand Souls".
[2] The eldest of five children, Arnold and his siblings were born to photographer Gerhard Gesell and schoolteacher Christine Giesen.
[4] His first experience in observing child development involved watching his younger siblings learn and grow until he graduated from high school in 1896.
Later, he studied history under Frederick Jackson Turner and psychology under Joseph Jastrow, receiving a bachelor of philosophy degree from Wisconsin in 1903.
Having developed an interest in the causes and treatment of childhood disabilities, Gesell began studying at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in 1910 to better understand physiology.
[9] In The Child from Five to Ten, Gesell wrote, "It is no longer trite to say that children are the one remaining hope of mankind...
[7][10] Based on his theory, he published a series of summaries of child development sequences, called the Gesell Developmental Schedules.
In 1911, Gesell married Beatrice Chandler who was a teacher he had met while working at Los Angeles State Normal School.