The Ira De A. Reid house is named to honor the memory of Ira Reid a prominent Professor of Sociology at Haverford College from 1947 to 1966. He chaired the sociology department and wrote and studied the lives of black immigrants in the U.S., and is recognized as a leader in the field of education sociology. He joined the Society of Friends as an adult, and is also recognized as the first African American faculty member at Haverford College, a white institution, during the era when the U.S. Supreme Courts Dread Scott decision, held that racially segregated separate but equal schools did not constitute unconstitutional racial discrimination.