Wilbert E. Moore was a American sociologist noted, with Kingsley Davis

Kingsley Davis

Kingsley Davis , identified by the American Philosophical Society as one of the most outstanding social scientists of the twentieth century, was a Hoover Institution senior research fellow and internationally recognized American sociologist and demographer...

, for their explanation and justification for social stratification, based their idea of "functional necessity."

Moore took his Ph.D. at Harvard University's

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 Department of Sociology
in 1940. Moore along with Kingsley Davis, Robert Merton and John Riley were part of Talcott Parsons

Talcott Parsons

Talcott Parsons was an American sociologist who served on the faculty of Harvard University from 1927 to 1973....

 first group of PhD students. Moore is perhaps best known for Some Principles of Stratification (written with Davis). Moore and Davis wrote this paper while at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 where he remaind until mid-1960s. This was followed by a period at the Russell Sage Foundation

Russell Sage Foundation

The Russell Sage Foundation is the principal American foundation devoted exclusively to research in the social sciences. Founded in 1907 and headquartered in New York City, the foundation is a research center, a funding source for studies by scholars at other institutions, and a key member of the...

 before moving to the University of Denver where he stayed until his retirement.

Moore was the 56th president of the American Sociological Association

American Sociological Association

The American Sociological Association , founded in 1905 as the American Sociological Society , is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology by serving sociologists in their work and promoting their contributions to serve society.The ASA holds its...

.

Selected publications

Davis, Kingsley and Wilbert E. Moore. (1945) Some Principles of Stratification. American Sociological Review 10 (April): 242-249

Moore, Wilbert E. (1964) Social Change, Prentice Hall: New Jersey