​​​​​​​Design Division, Inc.   91 Gray Street  Amherst   MA   01002   413 549 0510​

Lighting Freedom’s Road

Client: North Country Underground Railroad Association (NCUGRHA)

Budget: $150,000

Collaborating with NCUGRHA staff, Design Division developed an interpretive approach centered on an object theater that dramatically brought escaped slave John Thomas’s story to life. A second primary exhibit featured abstracted scale models of churches, and focused on the contrasting attitudes toward slavery of different 19th-century area church groups. Local, regional, and national underground railroad routes were illustrated using period maps in one gallery, while other stories were told on interpretive panels located throughout the exhibit space. The lives and struggles of those traveling on the underground railway through the region were the main interpretive themes.

Interpretive Planning • Exhibit Design