The Earhart Foundation is a private charitable foundation that funds research and scholarship. It was founded in 1929 by oil executive Harry Boyd Earhart

Harry Boyd Earhart

Harry Boyd Earhart was a successful oil company executive, and founder of the Earhart Foundation. After his death, Earhart's land and mansion in Ann Arbor, Michigan became part of Concordia University, Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1963....

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History

The Philanthropy Roundtable

Philanthropy Roundtable

The Philanthropy Roundtable is a private, non-partisan, 501 organization. Its stated mission is "to foster excellence in philanthropy, to protect philanthropic freedom, to assist donors in achieving their philanthropic intent, and to help donors advance liberty, opportunity, and personal...

 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 Friedrich von Hayek. Hayek, who wrote The Road to Serfdom and The Constitution of Liberty taught at the London School of Economics

London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

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The foundation supports 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.

Since at least 1995 the Earhart foundation has been engaged in the pursuit of publishing the collected works of Eric Voegelin

Eric Voegelin

Eric Voegelin, born Erich Hermann Wilhelm Vögelin, was a German-born American political philosopher. He was born in Cologne, then Imperial Germany, and educated in political science at the University of Vienna. He became a teacher and then an associate professor of political science at the...

. From 1995 to 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 had total assets of $95 million (2000 IRS Form 990). The Earhart Foundation is sponsoring the ArchiveGrid

ArchiveGrid

ArchiveGrid is a subscription-only database containing nearly a million descriptions of archival collections from all over the world. Historical documents, personal papers, manuscripts and family histories are described and cataloged by librarians and archivists...

 project. Between 1985 and 1991, it was one of five foundations to fund the George C. Marshall Institute

George C. Marshall Institute

The George C. Marshall Institute is a politically conservative think tank established in 1984 in Washington, D.C. with a focus on scientific issues and public policy. In the 1980s, the Institute was engaged primarily in lobbying in support of the Strategic Defense Initiative...

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