Nobel Prizes
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
FOUNDATION, AND INSTITUTES. Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the Swedish inventor, provided before his death that five prizes be every year distributed to individuals, who during each respective year had made the greatest contribution to progress and learning in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and fund donated international peace. The by him to these purposes was $9,200,000, rest, usually about of which the interest, usuall $200,000, is awarded by the trustees. The decision in the case of chemistry and physics was intrusted to the Swedish Academy of Sciences, in physiology and medicine to the Caroline or Medical Institute in Stockholm, and in peace to a committee of five, elected by the Storthing of Norway. The Nobel Foundation is formed of a president appointed by the government, and four other members chosen for a two-year term by fifteen deputies named by the bodies intrusted . The by the donor with the awards Foundation has care of the funds, to which one-tenth of the interest is annually added, while a fourth is deducted in the main for the use of the Nobel Institutes. These Institutes include that of the Swedish Academy, with a literary volumes; the Nobel Inlibrary of 38,000 stitute for Physics and Chemistry of with the Stockholm Academy of Sciences a scientific library; and the Norwegian Nobel Institute, with a law library. Awards have been made since 1901 and among the noted recipients have been W. K. Röntgen, G. Lippman, and G. Marconi in physics; Sir W. Ramsay, H. Moissan, and Marie Curie in chemistry; R. Koch , and A. Carrel in medicine; B. Björnson M. F. Mistral, G. Carducci, R. Kipling, Maeterlinck, and Rabindranath Tagore in literature; and Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, T. Roosevelt, and E. Root in international peace. The peace prize for 1919 was awarded to Leon Bourgeois, and for 1920 to Woodrow Wilson.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's wrote this in 1921 there were five prizes, funded by a bequest of about $9,200,000 yielding roughly $200,000 a year. A sixth award was added in 1968, when Sweden's central bank endowed the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, first given in 1969; the money is now set at 11 million Swedish kronor per prize, around a million dollars. Rules have hardened since: no prize may be split more than three ways, and since 1974 none may be awarded posthumously. More than 900 individuals and organisations have now been honoured, and the literature prize was suspended for 2018 after a scandal engulfed the Swedish Academy, with two laureates named in 2019. Collier's also seems to have reversed the last two peace awards it lists he prprize for 1919, Leon Bourgeois that for 1920.
Written for this edition, 2026.