56 198
80
●
(SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT)
Remarkable archive relating to Suffragettes Louise Hall and her life partner, Ethel Harte (the
daughter of novelist Bret Harte), with a total of 76 photographs by Ollie Hall. Includes an album
entitled “The Liberty Bell Tour,Votes forWomen,” containing 31 prints, with pictures of Hall, Harte,
Elizabeth McShane (a tour director), Katharine Wentworth Ruschenberger (the tour’s patron, a
Main-Line Philadelphian and staunch women’s rights supporter), the thousands of spectators who
turned out to hear them (many of them working men), and a replica of the Liberty Bell, which was
transported in the flatbed of a Model T. Silver prints, 5
3
/
4
x3
3
/
4
inches (14.6x9.5 cm.), and smaller,
and the reverse, as well as a 2-part panorama measuring 4
3
/
4
x10
3
/
4
inches (12.1x27.3 cm.), with
captions, in white ink, below the images; many of the prints are no longer attached to the mounts;
with 45 related prints, which are loose. Oblong 4to, disbound. 1915
[7,000/10,000]
WITH
—
Typed Letter autosigned by JFK to Sonise [sic] Hall (1960) and a Typed Letter Signed by Governor Adlai
Stevenson to Miss Hall (1952).
AND
—
A mini-archive of photographs and postcards relating to Bret Harte and his family,
with 2 cabinet cards of the novelist (one by Brady), a cdv, other photographs of Harte with unidentified friends or family
members, period tintypes, and postcards addressed to Ethel Bret Harte and/or Louise Hall. 1860s-1937.
The marvelous photographs in the album were taken by Louise’s brother, Ollie Hall, a highly accomplished
amateur photographer who went on to study engineering at M.I.T.The album is accompanied by a group of 45
loose photographs, which were also taken by Hall and are of the same tour; includes multiples of a few of the
images in the album. Many of these prints have lengthy captions on print verso.
According to Cathy Pickles of the National Women’s History Museum: Katharine Wentworth Ruschenberger
commissioned a replica of the Liberty Bell (a.k.a. the “Justice Bell”) to help spread the cause of woman suffrage
in Pennsylvania.The inscription on the bell likened the denial of votes for women to the tyranny of English
rule which fueled the American Revolution. It differed from its brother only in that it lacked a crack and bore
the inscription, Establish Justice.
The 2,000 pound bell became something of a sensation. It toured 5,000 miles in a flatbed truck built specifically for this
purpose,criss-crossing Pennsylvania.It eventually appeared at suffrage events in Chicago andWashington,DC.Its travels
were marked by large crowds and band-led parades. Miniature versions of the bell were sold to defray the cost of its tour.
The bell’s clapper was chained into silence until the passage of the 19thAmendment.In a ceremony held in Independence
Square in September 1920, the bell was raised and rung by a woman dressed as Justice, signaling true liberty in the
United States: suffrage for women.The Justice Bell now resides in theWashington Memorial Chapel atValley Forge.