USM Digital Humanities is an interdisciplinary initiative that extends the range and scope of scholarship, research, and creative activity through innovative uses of digital technologies, extramural partnerships, and community engagement.
USM DH seeks to realize USM’s mission as a regional public university that develops and nurtures close connections to its communities by linking humanities research and creativity with the work of technology companies, non-profit organizations, and small and big businesses.
Scroll down to learn about DH, our projects, DH resources, and our plans for the future.
Portland Women’s History Trail
Without the work, ideas and individual and collective action of women, Portland—and the world—would be a very different place. Because their lives, in many ways, have been different from men’s lives, women’s history been distinct. By walking this trail, you can begin to connect with the lives of our sisters, mothers, aunts, and great grandmothers in all the diversity of backgrounds that these women represent. You will never see Portland, or history, in the same way again.
Envisioning Sea Change
Envisioning Change visualizes the impact of sea level rise in Portland, Maine and the Casco Bay region over a period of 200 years (1900-2100).
Envisioning Change engages artists, designers, community members and students in collecting and processing data, and will use a variety of analytic and expressive tools to chronicle and distribute information about the rising tides.
Documenting Maine’s World War I Memorials
This digital humanities project aims to create a searchable digital inventory of Maine’s World War I memorials and monuments, including photographs (contemporary and historical), descriptions, inscriptions, mapped locations, and information on the history, creation, and dedication of each memorial.
Stories of Maine’s Paper Plantation
Stories of Maine’s Paper Plantation (“SMPP”) is an oral and digital history archive that contains formal and informal descriptions and remembrances of life in Maine’s “paper plantation.” The archive comprises 150-plus interviews organized into a searchable index, each item tagged with relevant metadata.
Digitizing Maine Chance Farm
This project seeks to create a digital archive of the first destination beauty spa in the United States, called “Maine Chance Farm” that Elizabeth Arden established in Mount Vernon, Maine in 1934.
A central part of the project is a fieldwork documentary project on Maine Chance.
