Abstract
As volunteer Linda Marker sat down to review the resulting Meyersdale Commercial newspaper images preserved on film, she spotted a small “Suffrage Meeting” article on page five of the very first issue, dated March 20, 1913. Time spent combing through the library’s archives and its collections, including those newly preserved newspapers, revealed that Somerset County had been home to an ambitious suffrage movement. Women such as county suffragist leader Alice Kiernan and Meyersdale activist Flora Snyder Black led frequent meetings, welcomed the Justice Bell to their county as part of a statewide effort to garner support for a 1915 Pennsylvania suffrage referendum, and organized a 1916 gathering of some 700 women for the dedication of the state’s suffrage flag at Alice’s home outside of Somerset.