Moe's Books
Berkeley, Alameda County, California
Marker Inscription
Moe's Books. In 1959, Morris (Moe) Moskowitz and his wife, Barbara, opened a small paperback bookshop on Shattuck Avenue. They soon moved to Telegraph Avenue where Moe’s Books evolved into a renowned emporium featuring hundreds of thousands of books. Moe’s Books was a pioneer in giving honest, fair prices by establishing a fair trade policy of offering cash or a higher value in “Moe Dollars” (“In God and Moe We Trust”) for used books. These innovative trade slips—membership cards to a literary world— give previously read books respect and value. Defying Berkeley’s no-smoking ordinance, the iconoclastic, politically leftist Moskowitz enjoyed his cigars at work, typifying Telegraph Avenue’s anti-authoritarian identity. Since his death in 1997 the bookstore has remained a family-run business, continuing its legendary founder’s traditions.
Erected by Berkeley Historical Plaque Project
The Story
In 1959, Morris "Moe" Moskowitz and his wife Barbara opened a small paperback shop that grew, after moving to Telegraph Avenue, into one of the country's great used-book emporiums, stocked with hundreds of thousands of volumes. Moe pioneered a fair, transparent trade policy — cash or credit in his famous "Moe Dollars" — that treated secondhand books with respect. A cigar-smoking, unabashedly leftist iconoclast, Moe embodied the anti-authoritarian spirit of Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue.
Why it matters
Moe's Books stands as a landmark of postwar Berkeley's countercultural and intellectual life, where independent bookselling helped define a community's identity.
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Related people
- · Morris "Moe" Moskowitz
- · Barbara Moskowitz
Themes & tags
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