This collection consists of three series, comprised of some 450 items, including business correspondence, personal correspondence, and miscellaneous items such as lecture notes and a diary. Much of the business correspondence reflects Thomas Laird's tenure with the Los Lunas and Mountainair school boards, and as superintendent in Mountainair. Letters relate to the hiring of teachers, letters from aspiring teachers seeking jobs, the burning of the Mountainair (N.M.) high school building, and issues relevant to the school board. The non-school related business correspondence has to do with house rentals and furnishings, property, oil and gas, crops, the sale of minor items, and assorted correspondence with the Laird's bank in Minnesota. Also present in the collection are various canceled checks and receipts. Personal correspondence in this collection includes family correspondence (from both Minnie Kennedy's side and Thomas K. Laird's side) from numerous relatives from Minnesota, New York, and elsewhere. Personal correspondence to Thomas K. Laird includes letters and telegrams from friends from "home" (Austin, MN), from Macalester College, and from former students. The Lairds received correspondence from all over the U.S. as well as from Scotland. The collection also includes miscellaneous items such as lecture notes written by Thomas Laird regarding New Mexican history and civics, as well as a diary. The diary covers the years 1913 and 1914 and documents a trip to Montana and summer farm labor, the prevalence of church in daily life for Laird, summer employment, a trip to visit family in Austin (MN), and duties as a dishwasher in college. The social side of college life at Macalester in 1913 and 1914 is well documented also, describing interclass antics, social events, sports rivalries with other Minnesota colleges, and freshman hazing in detail.
