Henry Allen Moe Prize in the Humanities

Established in 1982 by a gift from the widow of Henry Allen Moe, to honor the longtime head of the Guggenheim Foundation and president of the American Philosophical Society from 1959 to 1970. It pays particular tribute to his firm commitment to the humanities and those who pursue them. The Moe Prize is awarded annually to the author of a paper in the humanities or jurisprudence read at a Meeting of the Society.

Prize Recipients

2024
Jan M. Ziolkowski in recognition of his paper “The Juggler of Notre Dame and the Medievalizing of Modernity,” presented at the APS April 2019 Meeting and published in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 164. The prize will be presented at the Society's November 2024 Meeting.

2020
David S. Tatel in recognition of his paper “Separation of Powers and Statutory Interpretation: A Battle Hidden in Plain Sight” read at the American Philosophical Society’s 2019 April Meeting and published in its Proceedings Volume 163, Number 3, September 2019.

2019
Alexander Jones in recognition of his paper “‘Like Opening a Pyramid and Finding an Atomic Bomb’: Derek de Solla Price and the Antikythera Mechanism” read at the American Philosophical Society’s 2017 November Meeting and published in its Proceedings Volume 162, Number 3, September 2018.

2018
Laurence H. Tribe in recognition of his paper "Reflections on the 'Natural Born Citizen' Clause as Illuminated by the Cruz Candidacy" presented at the Society’s 2016 April Meeting and printed in the June 2017 Proceedings.

2017
Douglas S. Massey for his paper "The Mexican-U.S. Border in the American Imagination" presented to the Society at its April 2015 Meeting and published in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, volume 160, no. 2, June 2016.

2016
Kathleen Hall Jamieson for her paper "Implications of the Demise of 'Fact' in Political Discourse" presented to the Society at its April 2013 Meeting and published in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, volume 159, no. 1, March 2015.

2015
Bruce Kuklick for his paper "Killing Lumumba" presented at the Society’s April Meeting in 2012, and published in the June 2014 Proceedings.

2013
John W. O’Malley for his paper “The Council of Trent (1545–63) and Michelangelo’s Last Judgment (1541),” read at the Society’s November Meeting in 2011, and published in the Proceedings for December 2012.

2012
William Chester Jordan for his paper entitled "Count Robert's 'Pet' Wolf," read at the Society's meeting April 23, 2010, and published in the Society's Proceedings, December 2011.

2010
Clyde Barker in recognition of his Jayne Lecture delivered to the members of the Society on November 9, 2007, and published in the Society's Proceedings, March 2009, entitled "Thomas Eakins and His Medical Clinics."

2009
Barbara Mittler for her paper “Popular Propaganda? Art and Culture in Revolutionary China,” presented at the Society’s Spring General Meeting in April 2007 and published in the December 2008 issue of the Society's Proceedings.

2008
Caroline Humphrey for her paper “Alternative Freedoms,” presented at the Society’s Spring General Meeting in April 2005 and published in the March 2007 issue of the Society's Proceedings.

2007
Patricia M. Wald for her paper "International Criminal Courts: Some Kudos and Concerns," presented at the Society's Autumn General Meeting in November 2004 and published in the June 2006 Proceedings.

2006
Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway for "The Study of Greek Sculpture in the Twenty-first Century.”

2005
Linda Greenhouse for "'Because We Are Final': Judicial Review Two Hundred Years after Marbury," delivered as part of the symposium "The Two Hundredth Anniversary of Marbury v. Madison."

2004
James J. Megivern for "Capital Punishment: The Curious History of its Privileged Place in Christendom."

2003
Carmela Vircillo Franklin for "'Pro Communi doctorum virorum comodo': The Vatican Library and Its Service to Scholarship."

2002
Thomas Noel Mitchell for "Roman Republicanism: The Underrated Legacy."

2001
Harry Kitsikopoulos for "Technological Change in Medieval England: A Critique of the Neo-Malthusian Argument."

2000
Helen Hennessy Vendler for "Seamus Heaney and the Oresteia: 'Mycanae Outlook' and the Usefulness of Tradition."

1999
Anthony Grafton for "Girolamo Cardano and the Tradition of Classical Astrology."

1998
Gerhard Böwering for "The Concept of Time in Islam."

1997
Jaroslav Pelikan for "Greek Wisdom in New Rome."

1996
Christian Habicht for "Athens, Samos, and Alexander the Great."

1995
James McPherson for "Who Freed the Slaves?"

1994
Bernard Bailyn for "Thomas Jefferson and the Ambiguity of Liberty."

1993
John P. Larner for "North American Hero? Christopher Columbus, 1702-2002."

1992
Crawford H. Greenewalt for "When a Mighty Empire Was Destroyed: The Common Man at the Fall of Sardis, ca. 546 B.C."

1991
Ada Louise Huxtable for "Architectural Criticism."

1990
Henry Hoenigswald for "Does Language Grow on Trees? Ancestry, Descent, Regularity."

1989
Roland M. Frye for "'Not of an age, but for all time": A Shakespearean’s Thoughts on Shakespeare's Permanence."

1988
Nicholas deB. Katzenbach for "Separation of Powers Now and Then."

Theodore J. Ziolkowski for "Schinkel's Museum: The Romantic Temple of Art."

1987
Robert R. Palmer for "The Two Toczuevilles and Two Kinds of History."

1986
Diane Ravitch for "Politicization and the Schools: The Case of Bilingual Education."

1985
Alfred J. Rieber for "Businessmen and Business Culture in Pre-Revolutionary Russia."

1984
M. Alison Frantz for "Multum in Parvo: The Aegean Island of Sikinos."

Edmund Sears Morgan for "The World and William Penn."

1982
Rensselaer W. Lee for "The First Illustration of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered."

Jerome Blum for "Fiction and the European Peasantry: The realist Novel as A Historical Source."