40 Facts About James Rouse

James Wilson Rouse was an American businessman and founder of The Rouse Company.

James Rouse received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award, for his lifetime achievements.

James "Jim" Rouse was born in Easton, Maryland, to Lydia Agnes and Willard Goldsmith Rouse, a canned-foods broker.

When he lost, the James Rouse family moved from Bel Air, Maryland, to Easton.

James Rouse grew up in Easton on a well-to-do street on the edge of town.

James Rouse was taught at home by his mother until second grade when he transferred to a public school.

In 1930, James Rouse lost his father to bladder cancer, his mother to heart failure, and his childhood home to bank foreclosure.

James Rouse declared his major as political science and waited tables at a local boarding house.

James Rouse found a job parking cars at the St Paul Garage for one year.

James Rouse later remarked that he got the job even though he could not drive, and had convinced his foreman to teach him rather than fire him.

In May 1935, James Rouse wrote Millard Tydings, who found him a position with the Federal Housing Administration as a clerk specializing in completing FHA loans to eastern Maryland banks.

James Rouse borrowed money in March 1936 from Guy Hollyday who was a loan officer with the Title Guarantee and Trust Company seeking FHA loan guarantees and attended classes three nights a week at the University of Maryland School of Law.

James Rouse was hired at age 22 by his mentor Hollyday.

James Rouse used antisemitic quotas when building in the Roland Park neighborhood of Baltimore.

James Rouse would specialize in FHA backed loans, and hired Churchill G Carey from Connecticut General, with his former company providing loan capital to Moss-Rouse.

James Rouse was able to defer duty while his wife was pregnant, shipping out to Hawaii to work on John Henry Towers staff on July 4,1942.

James Rouse returned from the war and went back to work with Moss, using his gambling assets.

James Rouse co-founded the Citizens Planning and Housing Association and became involved in Baltimore, Maryland's efforts to rehabilitate its decayed housing stock through The Baltimore Plan.

James Rouse introduced the term "urban renewal" to describe the series of recommendations made by that task force.

In 1958, James Rouse built Harundale Mall in Glen Burnie, Maryland, the first enclosed shopping center east of the Mississippi River and the first built by a real estate developer.

James Rouse's company used the term "mall" to describe the development, which was an alternative to the more typical strip malls usually built in the suburbs.

James Rouse's company became an active developer and manager of shopping center and mall properties, even as he shifted focus to new projects which eventually included planned communities and festival marketplaces.

James Rouse was indicted for donations to Mandel's 1974 campaign which violated campaign contribution limits, but the charges were dropped because they had been brought outside the one-year limit.

On June 16,1961, James Rouse bought 68 acres inside the city from the Baltimore Country Club for $25,000 an acre.

Familiar with bad housing in Baltimore and Washington, DC, James Rouse now had an opportunity to demonstrate what housing within a city's borders could be like.

At a meeting at company headquarters in Hartford, Rouse made his pitch to CG's top real estate and mortgage people and the company's chairman of the board, Frazar B Wilde.

James Rouse would be responsible for the management of the acquired land and for preparing a master plan for development.

James Rouse wanted to hear from a wide assortment of experts and scholars.

James Rouse was not reluctant to bring up his home town of Easton as a model for Columbia.

James Rouse shifted focus from suburban retail to urban malls, which he called "festival marketplaces," of which the Faneuil Hall Marketplace was the first and most successful example.

In 1984, Jim James Rouse was soliciting business representing both James Rouse Company as CEO and Enterprise Development as president.

James Rouse was inducted into the Junior Achievement US Business Hall of Fame in 1981.

In 1988, James Rouse was awarded the second Honor Award from the National Building Museum.

In 1978, Rouse received the S Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.

In 1981, James Rouse received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

In 1995, James Rouse was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.

In May 1970, James Rouse posted full page anti-war ads in The Washington Post and later The New York Times that upset the new Nixon administration.

James Rouse separated from Libby in 1973, and married Myrtle Patricia "Patty" Traugott, from Norfolk, Virginia, in November 1974.

James Rouse died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis on April 9,1996.

James Rouse's nephew, Willard James Rouse III, was a real estate developer.