The Erie County Public Library unveiled a new exhibit called “Justice Bell and the Fight for the Vote,” exploring the role of Pennsylvania women in the fight to vote.
In a campaign for voting rights, in 1915, women’s suffragists traveled across Pennsylvania with a 2,000-pound replica of the Liberty Bell; they called that bell the Justice Bell.
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According to Amanda Owen, executive director of the Justice Bell Foundation, this campaign was one of Pennsylvania’s greatest contributions to the women’s suffrage movement and has largely been forgotten.
“That bell never rang until women got to vote- August 26, 1920- and then Pennsylvania celebrated, and the bell rang for the first time,” said Owen. “When I had found out, after asking around, I talked to librarians, I talked to women’s rights leaders, I talked to history teachers, nobody had ever heard of the Justice Bell.”…