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WILKES-BARRE &mdash; The Luzerne County Historical Society found themselves with a hit on their hands this week when they announced the sale of posters that are replicas of a sign dating back to the early days of women&rsquo;s suffrage.
				&ldquo;A woman living here has registered to vote,&rdquo; the signs read, &ldquo;thereby assuming responsibility of citizenship.&rdquo;
				The signs were hung in the windows of homes during the 1920 election, the first in which some American women were given the right to vote &mdash; it took until the Civil Rights movement later in the 20th century in order for the right to vote to be extended to all Americans, especially non-white women.
				Mark J. Riccetti Jr., director of operations and programs of the Luzerne County Historical Society, said the idea to replicate the signs came as a way to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the significant step forward in women&rsquo;s rights. But the signs came by way of a replacement for a planned traveling exhibition for the anniversary.
				&ldquo;Before COVID, we had a big exhibition that was going to travel around to different places &#8230; and then the world ended, so we basically threw all that away,&rdquo; Riccetti said.
				That exhibition is no longer touring, instead setting up shop at the historical society, viewable by appointment only. The original sign from which the reproduction comes was a donation from the League of Women Voters to be a part of that exhibition. When people on the historical society&rsquo;s board saw the sign, Riccetti said the response to it was unanimous.
				&ldquo;Every single one was like &lsquo;I&rsquo;d buy one of those,&rsquo;&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;People told me, &lsquo;You should reproduce that, I&rsquo;d buy it.&rsquo;&rdquo;
				So that&rsquo;s what they did.
				Riccetti said the society printed about a dozen of the signs at first, posting on their Facebook page that they&rsquo;d be sold for $5 each. That post was made on Wednesday afternoon, and Riccetti said the first printing was spoken for incredibly quickly. And he said it wasn&rsquo;t long before the post had national attention.
				&ldquo;A lady from Tuscaloosa, Ala., called and said &lsquo;I want 10 of them, I&rsquo;m giving them out to everyone I know,&rsquo;&rdquo; he said.
				In addition to local sales, Riccetti said there have been sales in &ldquo;Indiana, Michigan, Alabama, New York &#8230; up and down the east coast, the west coast.&rdquo;
				Now, Riccetti says the historical society plans to continuously reprint the signs until election day.
				According to Riccetti, the signs were hung in the homes of women who registered to vote in the 1920 election. He says the phrasing of the sign, where it says that women &ldquo;assume the responsibility of citizenship,&rdquo; comes from the fact that, at the time, taxes were tied to the right to vote.
				Few voted here
				Riccetti said that relatively few women in our area voted in the 1920 election, believing partially that it would mean they wouldn&rsquo;t have to pay taxes, but changes to the tax code meant the bill came anyway, leading to a later increase in women voters.
				If you ask him, part of the popularity of the signs likely comes from the contentiousness of this election year.
				&ldquo;Whether you&rsquo;re a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, I don&rsquo;t think anyone wants to be seen as being left out,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t wanna be the guy that says &lsquo;I didn&rsquo;t vote this year.&rsquo;
				&ldquo;People want to exercise their right to vote, which is fantastic, but they want people to know it,&rdquo; he said.
				If you want people to know that you&rsquo;re voting, Riccetti said you can get a copy of the sign by contacting him at 570-823-6244, ext. 3, or by emailing him at mriccetti@luzernehistory.org. You can also contact him to set up an appointment to view the suffrage exhibition.

Luzerne County Historical Society finds suffragette poster reproduction a hit