The Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal is awarded every year by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for outstanding lifetime contributions to astronomy. It is named after Catherine Wolfe Bruce, an American patroness of astronomy, and was first awarded in 1898. It is considered one of the highest honors in the field of astronomy.

In 1887, she donated the George Bruce Free Library. Between 1889 and 1899 she donated funds to the Harvard College Observatory (U.S.A.), Yerkes Observatory (U.S.A.) and Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl (Germany), run by Max Wolf at the time, to buy new telescopes at each of those institutes.

Bruce made over 54 gifts to astronomy, totaling over $275,000, between 1889 and 1899.

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