While many parents take their children on vacation trips to the beach or the mountains, Julia Ciccone’s parents took their children to museums and historic sites.
Those trips helped to foster a love of history in the Lawrence Township resident, who is a junior at Gettysburg College in the same town that was the site of a battle that was a turning point in the Civil War in 1863. It turned back the Confederate Army’s advance into the North.
So when Ciccone learned of a once-in-a-lifetime scholarship offered by the Daughters of the American Revolution to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday, she jumped at the chance to apply.
Much to her surprise, Ciccone learned that she was one of 10 recipients nationwide who were awarded a $25,000 scholarship by the DAR. The scholarship is for college undergraduate and graduate students who are studying American history.
Ciccone is entering her junior year at Gettysburg College. She is majoring in history with a minor in public history.
Ciccone is especially interested in 18th- and 19th-century American history, with a focus on New Jersey. At the moment, she is most interested in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.
“I thought I fit the description of the individual that the DAR was looking for. I had to write a short essay about the founding of the country or on my volunteerism for my community,” she said.
“Lucky for me, I live in an area with a rich history dating back to to the founding of America. My volunteer services was directly related to that field,” Ciccone said.
Many of those volunteer activities were tied to the Lawrence Historical Society and the Lawrence Junior Historians. Ciccone and her friend, Nate Kunkel, formed the Lawrence Junior Historians. It is the student chapter of the Lawrence Historical Society and is open to middle school and high school students.
As a high student, Ciccone helped with the Lawrence Historical Society at community events, such as Community Day and the fall and spring arts festivals. She also volunteered at lectures and at Hogmanay, which is the historical society’s annual New Year’s Eve celebration.
As a member of the Lawrence Junior Historians, Ciccone helped to organize the group’s clean-up efforts at the Princessville Cemetery on Princeton Pike. It is no longer in use, but it was the burial ground for Black residents of the township – including Civil War veterans.
“I also did some research into the Black Civil War veterans who are buried there, finding their military records to connect where they served during the war, their occupations before the war and where they came from,” she said.
It is in her interest in the Civil War that led her to an internship at the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park in Beaufort, S.C. She worked mostly within the interpretation unit, greeting visitors at each of its three sites.
She also created a 45-minute-long guided walking tour about women during Reconstruction in downtown Beaufort, as well as a script for a self-guided audio tour of Camp Saxton. It was the site of the recruitment and training of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers and the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers in the Civil War – Black troops that served in the Union Army.
Ciccone learned of the internship through the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College. It has funded an internship program that places students across the United States with a stipend and free housing.
This is the second internship that Ciccone has completed. Last summer, she served an internship at the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park in Virginia.
The town of Appomattox Court House is the site where the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, led by General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to the Union Army of the Potomac under General Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865. It effectively ended the Civil War.
Ciccone said that she is entering her junior year at Gettysburg College, so she is open to different paths. She “definitely” want to enter a public history field of some sort.
“So far, I have really enjoyed serving as a frontline interpreter at historic sites. This will likely lead me to working within visitor services at different museums, private organizations or state and federal government agencies like the National Park Service,” Ciccone said.
