The personal papers of George Koether, now available for research, offer insights to the economic and political thought in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. Koether was an economist, journalist, lecturer, and a longtime proponent of free-market principles. In 1940 Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises emigrated to the United States, bringing with him the Austrian School of Economics that would have a significant influence on the libertarian movement in the United States. Much of Koether’s professional and personal life became closely tied to Misesian economics, both as a prolific advocate of von Mises as a lecturer and as a benefactor of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Koether’s involvement also meant close ties with such prominent economists as Henry Hazlitt, Murray Rothbard, and Friedrich Hayek. Those relationships are reflected in an array of correspondence, speeches and writings, reports, pamphlets, photographs, and printed matter in Koether’s collection.
