Our History

How much can free peoples achieve?

That question has animated the Institute for Humane Studies since 1961. Founded by Dr. F. A. “Baldy” Harper, a former economics professor at Cornell University, IHS was formed against a backdrop of a world still recovering from two world wars, widespread physical and economic devastation, and the early years of the Cold War. Construction of the Berlin Wall began just a few months after our doors opened.

From the beginning, IHS has advanced the frontiers of political, economic, cultural, and intellectual freedom. That has meant gathering and supporting generations of the world’s leading minds within the liberal tradition. When, in the 1970s, Soviet communism deprived millions of their lives and livelihoods, the Nobel-winning economist Friedrich Hayek was elaborating alternatives from our offices. 

Today, with surging illiberalism at home and abroad threatening these same liberties and the human progress they unleash, IHS provides the rare spaces where liberals of all stripes—left, classical, and conservative—can unite behind the principles of freedom and human flourishing.

Though the world has changed much since our founding, IHS’s commitment to the principles of the liberal tradition hasn’t wavered. Nearly 65 years later, we’re still welcoming the dreamers and radicals and scholars working toward a freer, more prosperous, and more peaceful world.

Our Mission

We exist to support the achievement of a freer society by advancing the principles and practices of freedom.

Our Vision

We seek to spark a renewed Enlightenment movement that celebrates and advances the principles underlying the American Dream: political, economic, intellectual, and civic freedom.