FARMINGTON — Madeline Soucie, a University of Maine at Farmington senior, spends much of her time with Maine’s founding fathers who helped put Maine on the path to statehood nearly 200 years ago.

Soucie, from Auburn, is interning at the Maine State Archives. There she is working with historical letters, journals, documents and surveyor information to create an online index of original source material relating to the 1820 Act of Separation of the District of Maine from Massachusetts.

Maine started as a separate colony in the 1620s, but from the 1650s until 1820 was a part of Massachusetts. In an effort to pay off its post-Revolutionary War debt to the new U.S. government, Massachusetts raised money by selling off public land in Maine. Maine became the 23rd state on March 15, 1820.

Soucie’s online index is one of the archives’ efforts in preparation for the Maine Bicentennial in 2020. Majoring in history and minoring in political science, Soucie, or Maddie as she is known by most, gets to work with the actual pre-1820 documents.

Madeline Soucie examining original source documents at the Maine State Archives. (Photo courtesy of University of Maine at Farmington)

“They speak to me,” said Soucie. “It’s so important to not only know what happened historically, but also why it happened, how people felt about it and what they decided to do about it. Being able to read their first-hand experiences is just like being there.”

Soucie sees her current internship as an important part of her career development. She found the opportunity with the Maine State Archives through the UMF Partnership for Civic Advancement, a campus resource for experiential learning. She is also working with the history department to receive college credit for her work with the archives.

UMF’s Partnership for Civic Advancement supports student engagement in community-based activities in western Maine and beyond that they are intentionally designed to be mutually beneficial to UMF students, its community partners and the communities served.

Her internship is also one of 17 supported by the “Making History Work” grant, a collaborative University of Maine System multi-campus initiative. Launched this year, the grant provides financial support to history students interested in working in the field.

Soucie is interested in a career as an archivist or museum curator and also recently finished interning at the Norlands Living History Museum in Livermore. There she learned about the Washburn family, their prominence with state, national and international politics and the huge role they played in business and industry.

Soucie’s senior thesis will center on Elihu Washburn, longtime member of the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Minister to France and personal friend to Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.