Lewis (Edmonia) Center for Women and Transgender People

Date

1857-present

Location

76 South Professor Street

Architects/Collaborators

Builder unknown

Style

Vernacular

History

The Edmonia Lewis Center for Women and Transgender People is named after Mary Edmonia Lewis, an Oberlin student from 1859-1862 and famed sculptor. It is a collective of students, staff, and administrators who strive to transform existing systems of oppression based on sex, gender, race, class, sexuality, age, ability, size, religion, nationality, ethnicity, and language. The house in which it resides was built for James Monroe (1821-1898) in 1857 and sold by him in 1862 when he left Oberlin to serve as U.S. Consul to Brazil during the Civil War. Monroe was an Oberlin College and Oberlin Theological Seminary graduate student, and then a College professor known as a brilliant orator against slavery and active member of the Oberlin community during his years in this house. The house had many occupants over time; in 1962 it was used as two separate addresses. It was listed by the City of Oberlin as an Oberlin Historic Landmark in September 1975. In 1978 the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a structure in Oberlin College's Historic Resources thematic nomination. In 2000 the house was still in private ownership; recently the College took ownership.

Source

Ohio HIstoric Inventory for Monroe-Bosworth House by M. Fedelchak-Harley, J. Heaton, and L. Previll, Ohio State Historic Preservation Office, January 25, 2000, accessed from the Oberlin Heritage Center website, May 27, 2015.