06/05/2026
It’s First Friday! On the First Friday of each month, we share a favorite from the Read House & Gardens. This month’s favorite thing is presented by Noel Ank, a Read House ambassador and graduate student at the University of Delaware:
They can be easy to overlook, but if you peer into some of the bookcases throughout the Read House, you can spy some of the books that Philip and Lydia Laird owned and read.
These books, known as the Laird book collection, consist of over one hundred volumes of various genres, including gardening, history, novels, romances, short stories, travel, poetry, essays, and humor. The publication dates of these books range from 1684 to 1963, making the ages of the volumes range between 342 to 63 years old.
As Colonial Revivalists, Philip and Lydia were interested in preserving history not only through places and objects but with texts, as well. Many of the books the Lairds collected were in fact history books, demonstrating their specific interests in the American past. They also collected works of fiction, poetry, travel, and gardening, which are also useful in historic analysis of literature. As Philip and Lydia collected books according to their taste, they also left a record of the art that made an impact on them and possibly helped to shape their perspectives.
In many ways, the Laird book collection provides us with another window to peer into lives of the past. They can speak to and with the objects and the home that Philip and Lydia curated to give us a more complete picture of this family.
