Earhart Foundation
The Earhart Foundation is an American private charitable foundation that funds research and scholarship. It was founded in 1929 by oil executive Harry Boyd Earhart.
History
The Philanthropy Roundtable 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.[1]
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.[2]
Since at least 1995 the Earhart foundation has been engaged in the pursuit of publishing the collected works of Eric Voegelin. 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"[3]
In 2000, the Earhart Foundation had total assets of $95 million (2000 IRS Form 990). [4]