Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson Hearst was an American philanthropist, feminist and suffragist. Hearst was the founder of the University of California Museum of Anthropology, now called the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, and the co-founder of the National Parent-Teacher Association.

The Pepper–Hearst expedition of 1895–1897 on the west coast of Florida was sponsored by Dr. William Pepper and philanthropist Phoebe Hearst, and led by the anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing. The pre–Columbian finds demonstrate a Shell Age phase of human development and culture.