RFP: Exhibit Designer for the Wilson Bruce Evans House, Oberlin, OH

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Applications due February 24, 2025, for start date April 1, 2025

The Evans Home Historical Society is looking for an Exhibit Designer to work in cooperation
with a Content Developer to make plans for the interior public spaces now under rehabilitation in
the National Historic Landmark Wilson Bruce Evans House. The Exhibit Designer position is
funded as part of a grant from the National Park Service’s African American Civil Rights
program.

The Wilson Bruce Evans Home Historical Society (Evans HHS) is a 501(c)3 established in 2021
to rehabilitate the Wilson Bruce Evans House in Oberlin, Ohio. Built by a North Carolina born
free man of color, the home’s original wing was completed by 1856, with a substantial two-story
brick addition to the structure in the 1870s. The area available for exhibition is approximately
1200 square feet and includes 4 major areas—three rooms in the historic home and a newly
refurbished 600 square foot flexibly configured educational center–plus hallways and entrances.

BACKGROUND:
Trained as a cabinetmaker, Evans was an active abolitionist who went to jail for participation in
the 1858 Oberlin Wellington Rescue in defiance of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. He is said to
have hidden freedom seekers in his house. Two of his Oberlin kin, his brother-in-law Lewis
Sheridan Leary and his nephew John Copeland, gave their lives for joining in John Brown’s
Uprising. Rich with history and craft details, the house is being rehabilitated to open to the public
as an historic site and educational center honoring the history of Evans, his descendants, and the
long struggle for racial justice in the U.S. Documents, photographs, furniture and other objects
pertaining to the house are currently in storage. Archeological explorations in 2024 recovered
interesting fragments. The Evans HHS Board approved the museum master plan completed in
2024 to guide content development and exhibit design.

The Evans HHS Board includes many descendants of Evans as well as local historians and works
closely with the Executive Director; the organization currently has no employees, although it will
transition to paid staff when it opens to the public, with opening date projected for Fall 2026.
The Evans House will shortly begin its comprehensive rehabilitation funded in large part by
National Park Service grants. It will be conducting a concurrent search for an Exhibit Designer
to work in cooperation with the Content Developer. The Evans House has a budget of $90,000
for the subsequent fabrication and installation of exhibits.

VISION:
As a rare Black-owned historic site with a board that is committed to promoting racial justice, the
Evans House seeks to strengthen to the public’s understanding of African American history and
Oberlin’s history; celebrate and serve the local African American community; anchor an
abolitionist and African American historical district in Oberlin; and inspire visitors to work
toward a more just world, in Oberlin and beyond. Situated in Oberlin, a small town in northeast
Ohio known as “the town that started the Civil War” because of its antislavery activism, the
Evans House seeks to position itself as the starting point for Black heritage tourism in the region.
It will offer visitors hands-on experiences illuminating the history of the Underground Railroad,
and also less widely known but vital stories including accounts of how the descendants of Wilson
Bruce Evans founded schools in the post-Civil War south where they nurtured Black educational
aspirations despite Jim Crow limits. It will illuminate their achievements, and those of others, as students, teachers and scholars in Oberlin and beyond underscoring the long history of the
struggle for equality. By exploring the stories of the advances of, and challenges to, Oberlin’s
Black residents and neighborhoods, it will illuminate the impact of racism and document
resistance, locally and nationally, over the past three centuries. When open, the Evans HHS will
feature exhibits that are interactive, attractive to multiple audiences including especially young
people, and invites participation.

The work of the Exhibit Designer will proceed in stages with the following sequence of
deliverables:

  • Consultation on Exhibit Outline to be produced by Content Developer;
  • Schematic Design to be produced in cooperation with Content Developer;
  • Exhibit Design: creation of floor plans, story boards, scale drawings, for 3D and 2D
    exhibits; creation of copyedited and proofread graphic layouts;
  • Final Design consultation: preparation of final bid package for exhibit fabricators.

QUALIFICATIONS:

The Exhibit Designer will work closely with the Evans Executive Director and other members ofthe Evans Project team including the project architect, the historic preservation consultants, andthe Content Developer. Ability to work flexibly with small nonprofit is essential. More on the organization and its work is available at evanshhs.org. Exhibit Designer should be knowledgeable about Section 106 of the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation, particularly as applicable for the rehabilitation of a National Historic Landmark owned by a 501(c)3 not for profit organization, and other regulations pertinent to this federally funded project.

Other essential qualifications include

  • Experience with museum exhibitions;
  • Appropriate professional credentials;
  • References for least 3 separate projects.

Familiarity with the history of the Evans House, Wilson Bruce Evans, and antebellum Oberlin is desired.

Evans HHS has budgeted $48,000 for this position. Minority-owned businesses and female-
owned businesses are encouraged to apply.

In addition to documenting experience, credentials and projects, proposals should include:

  • a proposed timeline for the project;
  • An explanation of how the exhibit designer connects past and present in a social justice
    framework.

Please direct questions and proposals to Carol Lasser, Executive Director at
carol.lasser@evanshhs.org.