In 1915, Pennsylvania scheduled a statewide referendum on women’s suffrage, and a Chester County woman created a novel way to galvanize support for the amendment to give women the right to vote.

Katharine Wentworth Ruschenberger of Strafford paid $2,000 to have a replica of the Liberty Bell cast in bronze. Dubbed the Justice Bell because its advocates believed suffrage for women was a matter of American justice, it traveled to all 67 counties in Pennsylvania, drawing crowds to see – but not hear – it. The bell’s clapper was chained to prevent tolling until women’s political voices could be heard.

Although the referendum failed, Chester County distinguished itself as the only county in southeastern Pennsylvania to support it. Five years later, with the ratification of 19th Amendment, the Justice Bell rang for the first time on Sept. 25, 1920, at a celebration at Independence Hall.

On Sunday, Sept. 13, at 2:30 p.m., the bell will celebrate its 100^th birthday, and a group of area history advocates are inviting the public to attend a program at Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge National Park. It will include a carillon concert, speakers, and a ceremonial re-chaining of the bell.

The keynote speaker will be Marion Roydhouse, who recently retired as director of the Center for Teaching Innovation and Nexus Learning at Philadelphia University. A former president of the Pennsylvania Historical Association, she has written extensively on American women’s history.

Roydhouse will be joined by Susan Carty, state president of the League of Women Voters; Lynn Forney Young, president general of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution; Alexandra Tatnall, Ruschenberger’s great niece; and Laurie Rofini, director of archives and records services at the Chester County Historical Society.

Rofini said organizers hope the event will raise awareness about the significance of voting – a right that too many Americans routinely relinquish. She said it’s important for people to be reminded that many others fought for the right to have everyone’s voice heard.

She pointed out that one of the specious arguments against enfranchising women was that they could be represented through their husbands or relatives.

“It’s important that you don’t let other people speak for you,” Rofini said. “Nobody else can speak for you.”

George Reisner of the Washington Memorial Heritage, a nonprofit whose mission is the restoration of Washington Memorial Chapel, agreed. He said he hoped the re-chaining would remind people of the long-fought battle to get voting rights for everyone.

“Abigail Adams wrote John telling him that the Articles of Confederation should give women the vote, but it took 144 years for that to happen,” Reisner said. “Yet, even today, only 56 percent of people eligible to vote register and vote. In the 2014 election. barely more than one-third of the eligible population voted.”

Rofini said she expects the Justice Bell to be involved in another celebration five years from now when the 100^th anniversary of the ratification of the 19^th Amendment is commemorated.