Edmonia Lewis Center for Women and Transgender People

The Edmonia Lewis Center for Women and Transgender People is a collective of students, staff, and administrators doing the work of transforming existing systems of oppression based on sex, gender, race, class, sexuality, age, ability, size, religion, nationality, ethnicity, and language. The center strives to maintain a space that will allow support and advocacy for those disenfranchised on the basis of gender: cisgender* women and transgender people. The purpose of the ELC is to be a part of the struggles for social justice worldwide.

The house in which the center 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. The two-story wood-frame house is characteristic of 1850s, antebellum. It was placed on the National Register of Historical Places in 1978; the college took ownership in 2000.

The house is named for famed artist-sculptor Edmonia Lewis, an Oberlin student from 1859-1862.