Spock, Benjamin

Benjamin McLane Spock was born May 2, 1903, in New Haven, Connecticut, oldest of six children of a lawyer whose Dutch ancestors once spelled their names Spaak. He attended Yale University, where he joined the crew team and helped win a gold medal at the 1924 Olympics. From 1933 to 1943, he worked in private practice in New York City while teaching pediatrics at Cornell University. Spock's "Baby and Child Care," first published in 1946, was the bible of parents in the baby boom that followed World War II. He became a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, leading a march on the Pentagon in 1967. In June 1968, Spock was convicted in Boston and sentenced to two years in prison for conspiracy to aid, abet and counsel young men to avoid the draft. The verdict was reversed on appeal.