Marshall Jay Smith ’52

Marshall Jay Smith ’52 passed away on May 10 in Boston. He was born on December 13, 1931, in Lynn, Massachusetts, and graduated from Brookline High School. He graduated from Dartmouth with a degree in history and was a member of Pi Lambda Phi. He then earned an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School. Marshall was drafted into the Army, serving for two years. He then launched a remarkable career. In 1961, at age 29, Marshall and his wife, Judy, opened the first Paperback Booksmith. The firm blossomed into a chain of 75 stores up and down the East Coast during a time of dramatic social change in the 1960s and 1970s. Marshall went on to launch three more retail chains; he opened a total of 180 retail stores. He was always ahead of his time with emerging media, whether as the first video movie rental store with Beta and then VHS at the Videosmith or the mixed media education retail store, Learningsmith or Cybersmith, launched at the advent of the internet in 1995. Marshall was always active in politics and civil rights. He was chairman of the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, an early chairman of the Brookline human relations commission (a precursor to the current diversity and inclusion committee), and an elected town meeting member in Brookline. He leaves behind children Lani, Greg, and Jed; daughters-in-law Caitlin and Nancy; brother Malcolm ’44; and six grandchildren.