THE JUSTICE BELL

Owen celebrates the legacy of the Justice Bell in this history of the women’s suffrage movement.

The idea to create a replica of the Liberty Bell to represent the hopes and frustrations of early-20th-century women was first developed by Katharine Wentworth Ruschenberger, an active member in Pennsylvania’s suffrage movement. The one-ton bronze Justice Bell has a symbolically chained and muted clapper “to symbolize the silencing of women’s voices” in denying them the right to vote. The bell traveled thousands of miles across the Keystone State and was seen by more than one million people between 1915 and 1920 and emerged as one of the most powerful symbols of the Progressive Era. Following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the bell’s clapper was released for the first time, and it rang in Philadelphia’s Independence Square before a large crowd that included Susan B. Anthony’s nieces. This concise but comprehensive history of the Justice Bell chronicles its prominence within the suffrage movement as well as its eventual abandonment in the 1930s; not until the 1990s was the bell found in the woods on private land within Valley Forge National Historical Park. After a series of restorations (including one after the bell had suffered significant damage from falling off a truck in 2020 during a centennial celebration), the Justice Bell now rests inside the rotunda of Valley Forge’s Washington Memorial Chapel. Owen became fascinated by the bell while conducting research on the suffrage movement; her subsequent investigations led her to establish the Justice Bell Foundation and to direct the 2020 documentary Finding Justice: The Untold Story of Women’s Fight for the Vote, which premiered at the National Women’s History Museum and later aired on PBS affiliates. Offering additional details not included in the film, this book draws on the author’s impressive archival research and solid grasp of the history of women’s suffrage. Owen’s text is accessible and supplemented by visual elements that include newspaper clippings, maps, and photographs.

A well-researched, engagingly written story of a national treasure.