Watch Fob: Women's Liberty Bell / Justice / Equality.
[Suffrage]. “Watch Fob / Woman’s / Liberty Bell / Justice /Equality.” 1915 / Pennsylvania. Newark, NJ: W.A.H. Co., [1915].
Watch fob, which is made up of a leather belt-like strap and buckle; with ornament that is a brass Liberty Bell. Bell size: 1-1/4 x 1-1/8" with the words on the back; the strap 4 x 5/8" goes through a hanger at the tope of the bell. Complete and entirely intact and in very good condition. Enclosed in custom-made felt lined purple cloth box with silk pull and gold-tooled black leather label.
By 1915 American suffragists realized more and more that "publicity and propaganda" were increasingly necessary to make the public aware of their struggle and to promote the movement's virtue. In this year New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania - the four major eastern states - each had a suffrage referendum on their ballots. While ephemera and artifacts had always been a part of political campaigns, the suffragists carried the idea to new extremes, suffusing the culture with their message in the forms of armbands, spoons, badges, playing cards, china, buttons, megaphones, blouses, paper napkin and cups, rare dolls, and other kinds of paraphernalia. In short, they used modern methods of advertising in a highly creative manner. This watch fob, with its "Woman's Liberty Bell" is among the rarest of these memorabilia and is the only one we have heard of or seen.
Finnegan, Selling Suffrage. p. 122, listing this item. Also Selling Suffrage, see chapter "From Sunflower Badges to Kewpie Dolls," pp. 111-138.
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