Dr. Eileen Eagan is Associate Professor of History in the Department of History & Political Science at the University of Southern Maine. A native of Buffalo, NY, she earned her B.A. from D’Youville College, an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and her Ph.D. from Temple University. She joined USM in 1987. Her research and teaching interests focus on urban history, public art, and historical representation, as well as 20th Century history. She has published research on interpretations of women’s history in public sculpture, Irish women’s immigration to Maine, and other topics.
 
Eileen is the cofounder of the Portland Women’s History trail, a collaborative effort involving USM, Maine College of Art (MECA), Maine Humanities Council, and the Maine Historical Society. The goal of the project is to help tell the story of women’s history in Portland by guiding explorers through the area, from the statue in honor of Portlander Lillian Stevens, president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in the early twentieth century, located in the lobby of the Portland Public Library, to the statue of Joan Benoit Samuelson, the 1984 Olympics gold medal winner in the women’s marathon, located outside the Thomas Memorial Public Library in Cape Elizabeth.
 
While the work of the History trail is significant enough, Eileen has led the creation of a website (http://pmwht.org) and a smartphone app (Apple or Android App store) to make the stories more accessible. Eileen will share with us some of the stories we don’t know about Portland, and the growth of the project.