Correspondence, diaries, speeches, lectures, manuscripts of articles and books, subject files, bibliography, biographical material on the Bates family, newspaper clippings, photographs, and other papers pertaining primarily to Ames's career as a child psychologist. Documents her work at the Yale Clinic of Child Development and the Yale Child Study Center, as cofounder and codirector of the Gesell Institute of Child Development, and as an author of books and newspaper columns on child behavior. Includes general correspondence of the Gesell Institute; correspondence of Ames's associate, Frances L. Ilg; reports; articles for and correspondence relating to Child Behavior and Parents Ask, the columns written by Ames and Ilg; the Robert M. Zingg papers from the institute's archives; and other papers relating to the institute. Also includes material on Ames's work (1970-1971) with the U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare and the White House Conference on Children.

Correspondents include Annie E. Bates, Joan Ames Chase, James T. Culbertson, Fitzhugh Dodson, Paul H. Elicker, Arnold Gesell, Gerhard Alden Gesell, Eric W. Johnson, Len Lye, Margaret Mead, Guy S. Métraux, Ruth W. Métraux, Daniel P. Moynihan, Vance Packard, Evelyn Goodenough Pitcher, Richard L. Slosson, and Benjamin Spock.