Albert Irvin Cassell
Albert Cassell, famous Black architect, a man with a dream and a vision of a town for African Americans.
1895-1969
Albert Irvin Cassell was a famed architect, planner, educator, engineer, and entrepreneur who designed many buildings in Washington, DC. and around the country. He taught at Howard University and designed several of the campus buildings. In addition to designing buildings, he also planned whole communities. In 1931, at the depth of the Depression, he bought 380 acres of land in Calvert County on the Chesapeake Bay and began the planning of a community which he described as “intended primarily for the benefit of Colored persons” that he named “Calvert Town.”1
Cassell was born in Towson, Maryland. His parents were Albert and Charlotte Cassell. His father was a coal truck driver and trumpet player and his mother washed laundry to help with the family finances. In his teens he moved to Ithaca, New York and enrolled in a city high school there. He was admitted into Cornell University for college, where he worked on campus to pay for his tuition.
Before he could complete his studies at Cornell, he left and joined the Army during WW I. After his service, he returned to Cornell and received his degree. After college his first project included the design of five buildings at the Tuskegee Institute with fellow architect William A. Hazel. In 1920, he designed silk mills and other industrial plants in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Later that year, Cassell joined the Architecture Department of Howard University as an assistant professor.
Throughout his tenure at Howard University, Cassell designed projects that helped shape the physical growth of Howard University. In addition to teaching, he was the architect and planner for the campus. During this period, Cassell also designed buildings at Virginia Union University in Richmond and Morgan State College in Baltimore. In 1934, he presided over the creation of the College of Engineering and Architecture at Howard University.
Cassell left Howard in 1938 to work on Calvert Town and other projects. He started preparing designs and plans ever since he bought the property seven years earlier. He also designed other public housing developments. His work on Calvert Town continued up to his death in 1969. He was never able to develop his dream due to a variety of circumstances, many of which involved racial discrimination.
According to the Southern Maryland News, reporting on a talk given by Paul Sefton at the Calvert Historical Society September 25, 2015, Sefton stated, “Cassell struggled to accept the segregated ways of America, especially since he worked with many whites and in areas where there were few blacks around. This gave him the idea of creating a town where there wouldn’t be limitations like this for African Americans. Cassell chose the Dares Beach Road area as his site after receiving a good deal on the land. He named the first development Calvert Town, which was the name of the first settlement in Calvert County.”
1 The Calvert Historian p. 5 Volume xxxxi 2014-16
This biography is drawn from the resources cited below:
Additional Resources
The Calvert Historical Society has considerable information and documents on site concerning Albert Cassell, his work and architectural renderings for Calvert Town.
The Dream Dies Hard: Albert Cassell’s Calvert Town, by Peter Sefton and Sally Berk. The Calvert Historian Volume xxxxi 2014-16- available at the Calvert Historical Society or online by membership.
Cornell University – Ezra Magazine: Building on opportunity: The Cassell family of architects (cornell.edu)
Albert I. Cassell biography Albert I. Cassell (1895-1969) • (blackpast.org)
Plan $9,500,00 Negro Homestead: Group working to have Colony Located in Calvert County, The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, Maryland Thursday, January 31, 1935 page 14. article.
Historical society presentation tells tale of unrealized dream for 1930’s black community, Southern Maryland News, Andrew Cephas [email protected], September 25, 2015.
