Albert H. Small (October 15, 1925 - October 3, 2021) was a real estate developer and philanthropist.

Early life and education

Born to a American Jews, Jewish family,Jewish Washington - Scrapbook of an American Community: "Albert H. Small, Jr. - Real Estate Developer"
June 2, 2005 Small was of the second generation of a family involved in real estate development in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area.Jewish Washington: "Real Estate Boom"
retrieved September 18. 2014 Small's paternal grandparents were Isadore Small, an immigrant from Poznań in Poland, and Sarah Rappaport Small, who was born in Boston and later lived in Portland, Maine. Isadore Small arrived in Washington, D.C. in the 1880s, after having lived in Charleston, South Carolina upon first immigrating. Isadore was one of the founding members of Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, then a Conservative Judaism, Conservative synagogue. The Small family did not observe kashrut, as they were not Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox. The Smalls observed the Passover Seder and the High Holy Days, but did not observe other Jewish holidays. Albert H. Small's father Albert was a commercial developer who built the Silver Spring, Maryland, Silver Spring Shopping Center in 1938, the first drive-in shopping center in the area. Albert H. expanded into apartment and commercial development. In 1950, he founded Southern Engineering with Herman Greenberg and eventually built more than 20,000 buildings throughout the region. He graduated from the University of Virginia in chemical engineering in 1946. His son, Albert Small Jr., has followed in the family business and is involved in residential homebuilding mainly in Northern Virginia.

Career

Prior to the passage of the Fair Housing Act, 1968 Fair Housing Act, Small used Covenant (law), racially restrictive covenants to exclude African Americans and other Minority group, racial minorities from neighborhoods he helped develop. Small served as a Director of Home Properties of New York Inc. from July 1999 until May 4, 2004. Along with the acquisition of properties near Washington, D.C., he and others received approximately 4,086,000 of operating partnership units in Home Properties. He was President of Southern Engineering Corporation and was a member of the Urban Land Institute and the National Association of Home Builders. He invested with Bernie Madoff.

Philanthropy

Small served on the board of directors of the National Symphony Orchestra, National Advisory Board Music Associates of Aspen, Department of State Diplomatic Rooms Endowment Fund, James Madison Council of the Library of Congress, Tudor Place Foundation, The Life Guard of Mount Vernon, Historical Society of Washington, D.C., and the National Archives Foundation. The University of Virginia Library and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History have named rooms for him. The Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection in the University of Virginia Library is the most comprehensive in the world about the document. Small pledged his entire collection to the University, along with substantial funds for the new building. He has given to Tulane University. Small has a special affinity for those who died during World War II, and whose stories are "forgotten" as time passes. For the past two years, he has paid for a team of fifteen teachers and their student partners to come to Washington D.C. as part of Project Normandy: Sacrifice for Freedom This institute is affiliated with The George Washington University Department of History. Students and teachers research a soldier from their home state who is buried at the American Cemetery in Normandy, France. The teams then travel to France and tour the D-Day battlefields, where they lay a wreath at the graveside and read a memorial to their soldier. After they return home, students produce a web page devoted to that soldier.

Awards

* 2009 National Humanities Medal

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Small, Albert H. 1927 births 2021 deaths American Ashkenazi Jews American Conservative Jews American people of Polish-Jewish descent American real estate businesspeople American Reform Jews Businesspeople from Washington, D.C. History of racism in Maryland History of racism in Washington, D.C. Jewish American philanthropists National Humanities Medal recipients University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni