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"Rung it Never Can Be Until All Women are Free": Katharine Wentworth Ruschenberger and the Justice Bell
- Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies
- Penn State University Press
- Volume 87, Number 4, Autumn 2020
- pp. 591-619
- Article
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abstract:
This article traces the origin, creation, and use of the Justice Bell, a replica of the Liberty Bell that was cast for a statewide tour in support of the 1915 Pennsylvania referendum on woman's suffrage. Suffragists used the image of the Liberty Bell well before 1915, connecting its symbolism of freedom to the suffrage cause. After the unsuccessful 1915 campaign, the bell was used for national suffrage events, patriotic fundraising, and get-out-the-vote campaigns. Katharine Wentworth Ruschenberger commissioned and paid for the bell and retained ownership of it until her death. The post-1915 use of the bell reflects the shift in her suffrage affiliation from the more traditional National American Woman Suffrage Association to the radical National Woman's Party.