The Justice Bell’s Visit to Lackawanna County: 1915 and Today

The Justice Bell in 1915

On September 4, the bell party entered Lackawanna County, a hub of iron production and the anthracite coal industry, for a weeklong visit. Kate Chapman (Mrs. Maxwell Chapman), chair of the Lackawanna County division of the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association (PWSA), had meticulously planned an itinerary that brought the bell to towns across the county, beginning with its appearance as a main attraction in Scranton’s Labor Day parade. The Tribune reported on September 8, 1915:

“It was a most successful tour, Miss Elizabeth McShane, of Uniontown, PA, director general of the bell tour declaring that ‘the interest manifested by the people of Lackawanna County in our fight to secure the ballot, was highly encouraging.’ Probably the most interested in the Bell were the children along the route, and at the towns where meetings were held. At the conclusion of every street session, Miss McShane, who is a graduate of Vassar College, gathered the children around her and undertook to explain to them the story of the national relic, of which the suffrage bell is an exact replica. These meetings were the most interesting. Mrs. Fuller and several of the other speakers would expound at length upon the reasons why they should be given the ballot, and then the grownups would move back and the children would gather around the bell while Miss McShane in simple phrases told them the story of the bell. Little breaker boys [child coal miners], their faces black and grimy, linked hand in hand with school children, listened attentively while the story of the bell was unfolded to them. Their eyes sparkled with pleasure as Miss McShane smiled upon them and in her motherly and simple way told them of the hardships our forefathers went through in their struggle to gain independence. Wherever the bell truck halted, were it for a few minutes on the roadside or in one of the towns at which the party was scheduled to speak, the children were the most interested. They would climb up on the truck, and with a feeling of awe, touch the sides of the great bell. This done, Jimmy or Mary would shout “I touched it,” while mothers standing on the edge of the crowd looked on and smiled.”

Suffragist Spotlight
Kate Chapman

Kate Chapman appears numerous times in the newspapers for her suffrage advocacy under the name Mrs. Maxwell Chapman, following the custom at the time for married women to be referred to by their husband’s name. She was born Kate Amelia Ryon on August 10, 1865, in Elkland, Pennsylvania, the youngest of three children of Charles Ryon and Sylvina Gertrude Hoyt Ryon. On December 9, 1886, she married Maxwell Chapman, a civil engineer from Port Blanchard. The couple had one child. By 1900, they had moved to Dunmore, a suburb of Scranton, where Kate lived for the rest of her life. In 1913, as suffragists worked to secure the votes needed for the Pennsylvania legislature to pass the state suffrage amendment, Chapman was called upon by Jennie Bradley Roessing, president of the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association (PWSA), to obtain a key endorsement from the Central Labor Union of Scranton. The following year, she played a leading role in the movement while serving in multiple positions: as chair of the Lackawanna County division, a vice president of the PWSA, and the founder and president of the Lackawanna County Equal Suffrage League. Among her many contributions, she oversaw the 46th Annual Convention of the PWSA, held at the Hotel Casey in Scranton in November 1914. She attended the sendoff of the Justice Bell in Sayre on June 23, 1915, delivered speeches in Bradford County, and was the primary organizer of Scranton’s 1915 Labor Day parade, where the Justice Bell was prominently featured.

In 1920, she was among those who traveled to Philadelphia to hear the Justice Bell ring for the first time. In 1921, Chapman made history as the first woman to run for elected office in Lackawanna County. She won the nomination for county treasurer on the Prohibition ticket but was narrowly defeated in the general election.

A Pomeroy historical marker honoring Kate Chapman is located in front of the Century Club in Scranton, now home to the Scranton Area Community Foundation.

Returning in 2026

More than a century after the Justice Bell Tour, I traveled to Lackawanna County on June 8, 2026, at the invitation of the Lackawanna County Historical Society and the Scranton Area Community Foundation (SACF). The program was held at the storied Century Club in Scranton, a historic women's club built in 1913–1914. Their hospitality extended to offering me a stay at The Colonnade, another historic building built in the 1870s that is now a boutique hotel owned by Paul Blackledge and Joshua Mast, who could not have been more gracious hosts.

The event featured a warm welcome, a fantastic food spread, and an appreciative audience that included members of the DAR dressed in period costumes, county residents, and members of the historical society and the SACF. A local news station attended and interviewed organization leaders and audience members. The discussion after the film was invigorating and included questions about the imprisonment of the suffragists (which included Pennsylvania suffragists Elizabeth McShane, Kate Heffelfinger, and others) in Washington, DC, for picketing in front of the White House; details about some of the speakers of the 1915 tour, including Scranton native Kate Chapman and Louise Hall; and questions about where the Justice Bell is presently located, as well as information about when it fell off the truck during transport to a 2020 event.

As the saying goes, “It takes a village,” and many women helped make the event possible, including Sarah Picini, Assistant Director of the Lackawanna Historical Society, and officials of the Scranton Area Community Foundation, including Laura Ducceschi, President and CEO; Amy Betts, Lead Community Impact Manager; and Jana Nelhybel, Sustainability and Impact Manager.

A special note: The Justice Bell: Tracing the Journey of a Forgotten Symbol now has full distribution and is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, other online retailers, and local bookstores.

I will continue to bring autographed copies to our events, but feel free to order a copy in advance and bring it with you. I would be happy to autograph it.

Continue the Journey

Our next stop is in Delaware County at the Radnor Memorial Library in Wayne on July 8, 2026.

Follow the 2026 Justice Bell Tour

Learn more about the tour on our website.

• View the Justice Bell Foundation tour page

• See the full schedule of events

• Learn more about the documentary Finding Justice: The Untold Story of Women’s Fight for the Vote

• Read the book The Justice Bell: Tracing the Journey of a Forgotten Symbol

Join us as we continue to follow the path of the Justice Bell and explore the remarkable history it represents in Pennsylvania’s fight for women’s suffrage.

Sign up to follow our blog here, and we'll notify you when a new post is published.

The Justice Bell’s Visit to Wayne County: 1915 and Today

The Justice Bell in 1915

On August 18, 1915, the autotruck carrying the Justice Bell broke down in Susquehanna County. While the truck was being repaired, the suffragists continued without it, traveling to towns in Wayne and Pike Counties. Although attendees were disappointed by the Justice Bell’s absence, large crowds still gathered to hear the speeches. To make up for the missing bell, the suffragists put extra effort into engaging the audiences and raising much-needed funds through the sale of bell souvenirs. On August 20, the repaired truck with the Justice Bell rejoined the suffrage caravan as it entered Pike County. They reached southeastern Wayne County the following day, where Louise Hall delivered a speech. That evening, local suffragists escorted the bell back across the county line to Milford, in Pike County.

The Wayne Independent reported on August 24, 1915:
Bell Party Tours Southern Wayne: Outbursts of Oratory and Applause Along Route
“The disabled Liberty Bell truck in a Susquehanna garage and the delayed parts necessary for its repair and operation caused great disappointment along the route where the appearance of the bell was scheduled in southern Wayne County. On Friday, the bell party comprising Miss Louise Hall, Miss Elizabeth McShane, both Vassar college graduates and sent out by the Pennsylvania State Woman Suffrage Association….Miss Louise Hall spoke for an hour and twenty minutes to a crowd of several hundred people in front of the bank building and made one of her most telling efforts in this the biggest and best meeting of the whole campaign in Wayne. The bell arrived in Hawley on Saturday [August 21] where it was met and escorted into Milford by Mesdames Van Etten, Wolfe and Eddington of that borough.”

Suffragist Spotlight
Louise Hall

Louise Hall was already a veteran of the movement when she became director of the Justice Bell tour and one of its most popular speakers. A 1903 graduate of Vassar College, she taught at private girls’ schools before moving to New York City to work in the settlement houses, where she was radicalized through her contact with women and children living in poverty. In 1910, she became active in suffrage work in Massachusetts, and by 1912, she was organizing in Rhode Island and Ohio. The Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association (PWSA) hired her in 1913 as its full-time executive secretary and, a year later, as organizing secretary.

Hall traveled with the Justice Bell tour from its launch in Sayre, Pennsylvania, on June 23, 1915, until October 12, when she was dispatched from Lebanon County to Philadelphia and then to several other locations to assist with last-minute campaigning ahead of the November 2 election.

She was described in multiple newspapers as an especially gifted speaker. One account from July 29, 1915, called her one of the best suffrage campaign speakers in the country. “Her introductory speeches make the justice of the suffrage cause so clear that the message of the chained and silent bell arouses an irresistible determination in the audiences to see that the women of Pennsylvania get the justice of enfranchisement and are enabled to unchain their Bell and proclaim that fact.”

After the Pennsylvania campaign, Hall continued her suffrage work, organizing in New York, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. In 1918, she accepted a position with the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, their first female employee. After fifteen years as supervisor of the women’s department at MassMutual in Boston, she moved to England with her life partner, Ethel Bret Harte, daughter of the well-known novelist and poet Bret Harte. A year later, they drove across the United States and, in 1934, settled in Ojai, California, where both would spend the rest of their lives.


Returning in 2026

More than a century after the Justice Bell Tour, I traveled to Wayne County on June 6, 2026, at the invitation of the Wayne County Historical Society. Over the past several years, I have been in contact with numerous historical societies as I have hunted for information related to the 1915 Justice Bell tour, and have received generous assistance in locating undigitized articles. Bernadine Lennon, director of the Greene-Dreher Historical Society in Wayne County, and I first connected several years ago when I was searching for undigitized information about the Justice Bell’s tour through Wayne and Pike Counties. She was able to locate newspapers that recorded the bell’s travel through both counties. When she heard about our 2026 Tour, she connected me with Kelly Alogna of the Wayne County Historical Society.

During my drive to the event location at Canal Park in Hawley, I thought of the women and their bell as they traversed these forested mountain roads, some of them quite steep. I passed through the town of Hawley, an incredibly picturesque community, and thought of the Justice Bell’s arrival there on August 21, 1915.

My event at Canal Park, just down the road from Hawley's main street, took place on an actual canal boat. Kelly Alogna had thought of everything for a film screening. There was a basket filled with adorable small bells, lemonade, water, and popcorn. A large, appreciative audience that included board members of the Wayne County Historical Society, local residents, and even Hawley's mayor had many questions after the film, and we had an invigorating discussion. The story of the Justice Bell is so fascinating that they were as astonished as I was when I first learned of it, wondering why they had never heard about this dramatic chapter of Pennsylvania's history.

After a lovely dinner with Bernadine Lennon and her husband, Jon, the skies opened up just as I prepared to drive back to my hotel, which was about fifteen minutes away. Jon offered to guide me through the thunderstorm. Gripping the steering wheel and with my nose glued to the windshield, I could see little but the taillights of his pickup and thought again of the suffragists during their tour, when rain accompanied so much of their journey. And they were in an open autotruck wearing long dresses! I’ll finish this post with a quote from later in the tour from a Reading Times report on October 16, 1915:

“Through rain and mud, the Woman’s Liberty Bell came into the northern part of Montgomery County . . . . It rained while the addresses were being made in the Square at Pennsburg last night, and it came down in torrents in the afternoon. But the campaigners have made an inexorable rule not to postpone a meeting or cut out a stopping place on account of the weather, and they have kept faithfully to their schedule through the rain and heat and mud and the adverse weather conditions of the summer. So, when clouds broke and the rain came down, they simply hauled in their yellow flags, furled the red, white, and blue, let down the flaps of the auto truck, and went along the road like gypsies in a caravan.”

A special note: The Justice Bell: Tracing the Journey of a Forgotten Symbol now has full distribution and is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, other online retailers, and local bookstores.

I will continue to bring autographed copies to our events, but feel free to order a copy in advance and bring it with you. I would be happy to autograph it.


Continue the Journey

Our next stop is in Lackawanna County on June 8, 2026, where an event sponsored by the Lackawanna County Historical Society and the Scranton Area Community Foundation is planned at the Century Club in Scranton.

Follow the 2026 Justice Bell Tour

Learn more about the tour on our website.

• View the Justice Bell Foundation tour page

• See the full schedule of events

• Learn more about the documentary Finding Justice: The Untold Story of Women’s Fight for the Vote

• Read the book The Justice Bell: Tracing the Journey of a Forgotten Symbol

Join us as we continue to follow the path of the Justice Bell and explore the remarkable history it represents in Pennsylvania’s fight for women’s suffrage.

Sign up to follow our blog here, and we'll notify you when a new post is published.

The Justice Bell’s Visit to Schuylkill County: 1915 and Today

 The Justice Bell in 1915

Anti-suffrage sentiment flourished in numerous counties. Some men did not want women to vote because they were concerned that women would vote for prohibition and support child labor restrictions. Some men thought women weren't smart enough to vote. Some women thought the political sphere was too corrupt for women and argued that women held sufficient influence in their homes and families.

Although suffragists in most of these counties were able to develop strong grassroots organizations and brought out large crowds to welcome the bell in 1915, according to a researcher at the Schuylkill County Historical Society, Schuylkill County was not among them. (See below for more information about the bell and Schuylkill County.) Fortunately, the Justice Bell was once again taken on the road for a “Get out the Vote” campaign in 1924, when Katharine Ruschenberger and other members of the League of Women Voters embarked on a one-month, thirty-nine county tour as part of a "Get Out the Vote" campaign. Schuylkill County residents welcomed the Justice Bell on October 3 of that year. The Justice Bell: Tracing the Journey of a Forgotten Symbol provides details about this second statewide tour.

Suffragist Spotlight
Ida Porter Boyer

Schuylkill County native Ida Porter Boyer, active for more than thirty years in the women’s suffrage movement, was particularly influential on the national stage. In 1904, she represented Pennsylvania at the Thirty-Sixth Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association held in Washington, D.C. where she served as the Press Chair, Chair of Special Committees, and Editor of Progress. She was charged with preparing a bibliography of woman suffrage, and compiling and organizing the work of suffragists. In addition to her work in Pennsylvania, she worked on behalf of women’s suffrage in numerous states. She spent four years in Oklahoma (1906–1910) where she met Native American women and organized the Indian Woman’s Suffrage League. According to author J. R. Zane, her personal scrapbook contains numerous articles about Native Americans in addition to coverage about the suffrage movement. Her suffrage activism also took her as far west as Oregon and later to Louisiana, in addition to stints in Michigan, North Carolina, and Vermont.

After the certification of the 19th Amendment on August 26, 1920, Boyer worked on behalf of the Massachusetts League of Women Voters, helping women there to register to vote. 

A historical marker in Pottsville has been arranged for Boyer. The dedication will take place in September of this year.

Returning in 2026

More than a century after the Justice Bell Tour, I traveled to Schuylkill County on June 4, 2026, at the invitation of the Schuylkill County Historical Society. I first became acquainted with the staff there several years ago when I was seeking information about the Justice Bell’s tour through the county during the 1915 campaign. I had been tracing the path through Pennsylvania’s towns but could not find any information related to the tour. I communicated with Lee Singer, a researcher at the historical society, to see if she could find undigitized information in their archives. Ms. Singer, like so many researchers in the historical societies across the state, was extremely helpful. But alas, she could find no record that the bell had been in the county in 1915.  However, during a discussion following the film screening, an audience member, R. J. Zane, president of the Society, thought he had an article about the bell visiting the county. Stay tuned as I investigate whether the Justice Bell actually visited Schuylkill County during the 1915 campaign.

I met many wonderful people at the event, including the Executive Director Diana Prosymchak and Assistant Director Felica Wolf, who curated a fantastic exhibit about the textile mills of Schuylkill County. I was very happy to meet the aforementioned J. R. Zane, who wrote Ida Porter Boyer: Schuylkill County's Forgotten Suffragist, and Lisa Von Ahn, author of Mixed Emotions: Voices of Schuylkill County on Women's Suffrage. Both can be purchased through the Society, which has an extensive selection of books and other items. 

A special note: The Justice Bell: Tracing the Journey of a Forgotten Symbol now has full distribution and is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, other online retailers, and local bookstores.   

I will continue to bring autographed copies to our events, but feel free to order a copy in advance and bring it with you. I would be happy to autograph it.

Continue the Journey

Our next stop is in Wayne County on June 6, 2026, where a wonderful event sponsored by the Wayne County Historical Society is planned at Canal Park in Hawley.

Follow the 2026 Justice Bell Tour
Learn more about the tour on our website.

• View the Justice Bell Foundation tour page
• See the full schedule of events
• Learn more about the documentary Finding Justice: The Untold Story of Women’s Fight for the Vote
• Read the book The Justice Bell: Tracing the Journey of a Forgotten Symbol

Join us as we continue to follow the path of the Justice Bell and explore the remarkable history it represents in Pennsylvania’s fight for women’s suffrage.

Sign up to follow our blog here, and we'll notify you when a new post is published.