The Earhart Foundation was an American conservative private charitable foundation that funded research and scholarship since its founding in 1929 by oil executive

Harry Boyd Earhart Harry Boyd Earhart (1870–1954) was an American business executive and philanthropist. Biography Early life Harry Boyd Earhart was born in 1870.Grace Shackman (1997)The Earhart Mansion ''Ann Arbor Observer'', June 1997 Career He bought the ...

. Richard Ware served as the Foundation's longtime president.

History

The

Philanthropy Roundtable The Philanthropy Roundtable is a nonprofit organization that advises conservative philanthropists and advocates for donor privacy. History The Roundtable was founded in 1987 as a project of the now-defunct Institute For Educational Affairs. It ...

said of the Earhart Foundation in 2004, "For 75 years, the Earhart Foundation has epitomized achievement in the humanities and social sciences. ... Harry B. Earhart started the foundation in 1929 with the fortune he made with White Star Oil Company." Among his foundation's early beneficiaries was well-known economist and philosopher,

Friedrich von Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek (8 May 1899 – 23 March 1992) was an Austrian-born British academic and philosopher. He is known for his contributions to political economy, political philosophy and intellectual history. Hayek shared the 1974 Nobe ...

. Hayek penned the broadly read book, ''The Road to Serfdom and The Constitution of Liberty'' and taught at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

. Nine winners of the Nobel Prize in economics came from the ranks of Earhart Foundation Fellows. Other Nobel-winning economists who benefited from Earhart funding include

Milton Friedman Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and ...

Gary Becker Gary Stanley Becker (; December 2, 1930 – May 3, 2014) was an American economist who received the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, and was a leader of ...

James M. Buchanan James McGill Buchanan Jr. ( ; October 3, 1919 – January 9, 2013) was an American economist known for his work on public choice theory originally outlined in his most famous work, ''The Calculus of Consent'', co-authored with Gordon Tullock in ...

Ronald Coase Ronald Harry Coase (; 29 December 1910 – 2 September 2013) was a British economist and author. Coase was educated at the London School of Economics, where he was a member of the faculty until 1951. He was the Clifton R. Musser Professor of Eco ...

Robert Lucas The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' () "fame, glory, honour, praise, reno ...

Daniel McFadden Daniel Little McFadden (born July 29, 1937) is an American econometrician who shared the 2000 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with James Heckman. McFadden's share of the prize was "for his development of theory and methods for analyzin ...

Vernon L. Smith Vernon Lomax Smith (born January 1, 1927) is an American economist who is currently a professor of economics and law at Chapman University. He was formerly the McLellan/Regent's Professor of Economics at the University of Arizona, a professor of ...

, and

George Stigler George Joseph Stigler (; January 17, 1911 – December 1, 1991) was an American economist. He was the 1982 laureate in Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and is considered a key leader of the Chicago school of economics. Early life and e ...

. The Foundation sought to identify talent that reflects the mission of the Foundation: to support free-market scholars through a network of "Earhart professors" across the United States:

We find promising young men and women that we think would be ideal, not only from an intellectual but also from a character point of view, to be teachers and academic leaders in the future. And when we so identify them, we recommend them to the Earhart Foundation. They provide grants, and we continue to mentor these students as they go through graduate school.

In the 1980s the organisation funded the conservative

American Enterprise Institute The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare ...

. It also funded the now defunct

George C. Marshall Institute The George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) was a nonprofit conservative think tank in the United States. It was established in 1984 with a focus on science and public policy issues and had an initial focus in defense policy. Starting in the late 1980 ...

. Since 1995, the Earhart Foundation has been engaged in the pursuit of publishing the collected works of

Eric Voegelin Eric Voegelin (born Erich Hermann Wilhelm Vögelin, ; January 3, 1901 – January 19, 1985) was a German-American political philosopher. He was born in Cologne, and educated in political science at the University of Vienna, where he became an ass ...

. Between 1995 and 2002, the Earhart Foundation issued at least twelve grants totaling at least $115,000 "for (a) research assistance and (b) general operating support to continue preparation for publication of ''The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin.''" In 2000, the Earhart Foundation reported total assets of $95 million (2000 IRS Form 990). Funding from the Earhart Foundation has also helped promoters of Neo-Confederacy: between 1995 and 2005 the foundation awarded $10,000 to Clyde Wilson, $8,000 to

Thomas Woods Thomas Ernest Woods Jr. (born August 1, 1972) is an American author, podcast host, and libertarian commentator who is currently a senior fellow at the Mises Institute.Naji FilaliInterview with Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Harvard Political Review, A ...

, $14,000 to

Mark Royden Winchell Mark Royden Winchell (July 24, 1948 – May 8, 2008) was a biographer, essayist, historian and literary critic. At the time of his death he was Professor of Literature and European Civilization at Clemson University in South Carolina, where he ha ...

, director of the

League of the South The League of the South (LS) is an American White nationalism, white nationalist, Neo-Confederates, neo-Confederate, White supremacy, white supremacist organization that says its goal is "a free and independent Southern republic". Headquarte ...

, and $20,000 and $98,000, respectively, to League of the South–affiliated scholars

Thomas DiLorenzo Thomas James DiLorenzo (; born August 8, 1954) is an American author and former university economics professor who is the President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He has written books denouncing President Abraham Lincoln and is well known a ...

and James McClellan. In 2015, the Earhart Foundation published a guide to the H. B. Earhart Fellowship Program listing the Foundation's trustees, officers, and members, as well as fellowship sponsors and grantees during the program's existence from 1952 to 2015. Also in 2015, The Governing board decided to sunset the Earhart Foundation, and funds were dispersed by 2016.

References

{{Authority control Political and economic research foundations based in the United States Libertarian organizations based in the United States

History

See also

References