Alumni Profile: Rachael Nicholas '16

Nicholas Brings History to Life at Gettysburg

If you've toured Gettysburg National Park sometime in the past decade, the park ranger leading your tour may have been Ohio Wesleyan alum Rachael Nicholas '16.

And now, Rachael's Gettysburg expertise has earned her the job she has dreamed about since her years at OWU, park historian for the Gettysburg National Park in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

"I visited Gettysburg on a school trip when I was in the eighth grade. I was moved by the power of place, the fact that I was standing where something consequential happened," Rachael says. "I had been reading historical fiction since elementary school about young girls escaping to freedom along the Underground Railroad. It was the struggle between slavery and freedom, the quest for racial equality that caught my attention as a child."

"In her sophomore year, Rachael took my upper-level class on the Civil War and Reconstruction," says Barbara Terzian, the Cornelia Cole Fairbanks Associate Professor in the Department of History. "One day, she told me she wanted to be a park historian for Gettysburg. She was a hardworking student and understood the importance of taking opportunities when they're available to you."

Rachael began grabbing those opportunities at OWU's Civil War Lecture Series, where she met with a visiting lecturer from Gettysburg. That opened the door for her to secure an OWU Connection grant to join students from across the country at Gettysburg College's Department of Civil War Era Studies. She also completed an internship at the military farm.

"They call Gettysburg the best Civil War classroom," Rachael says. "It's because you are on the battlefield, and that's what really makes the program."

After graduation, Rachael enrolled at West Virginia University for graduate study in 19th-century U.S. history— and she kept her summer job at the national park.

"Being a seasonal ranger was rewarding," she says, "because I could see the 'Aha!' moments."

One of her most memorable encounters was an exchange with a young girl in the Soldiers' National Cemetery. "I had given a speech for Independence Day that had apparently impressed her. She walked up to me at the end of the program and told me that she wanted to be a park ranger like me one day. One of the photographers caught the conversation between us and took a picture. I can't help but look at that photo with pride, because the girl I was talking to was a miniature version of me, right down to the blonde hair."

Today, as a park historian, Rachael works "behind the scenes," assessing the preservation needs of more than 30 historical structures in the park and keeping track of park records.

"It is a dream job because it allows me to have a tangible impact on the cultural landscape and how it appears to the public," Rachael says. "More than just research that becomes a book, it is research that will contribute to park decisions and management for decades to come."

Rachael is working on her dissertation while fulfilling her responsibilities at Gettysburg. Her research focuses on borderlands, such as the Mason-Dixon Line, in the context of African-American lives during the Civil War. She enjoys historical fashion and hiking the hills near her 19-century home in Fairfield, Pennsylvania, where a small cavalry battle occurred on July 3, 1863, the same day Pickett's charge took place in Gettysburg.

"I got my dream job, and I'm living in my dream home."

– Written by Savannah Brantley '25