The National Museum of Industrial History in South Bethlehem began its month-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which recognized women’s right to vote, with a two-day International Women’s Weekend on March 7 and 8. Events ranged from talks on women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship by local leaders to re-enacted portrayals of scientists Emma Allison and Rebecca Lukens to a movie, Hello Girls, about the women who served in the US Army Signal Corps during WWI.

The programming included women in science, like Just Born packaging engineer Charlotte Edwards, but speakers encouraged women to develop their talents in fields from entrepreneurship to scholarly research in the humanities. Discussions ranged from empowering – Veronica Moore’s workshop on overcoming false information appearing real (FEAR) –to sobering, as when Dr. Louise Krasniewicz told her audience that the best place to begin researching any 19th-century woman is probably the admission records for “lunatic” asylums, where women were sent for causes ranging from having a messy appearance to having an affair to simply having career aspirations.

The “Superwoman Speakers” for the two-day program were Veronica Moore of personal coaching firm Alma & Eva, Dr. Louise Krasniewicz of the Penn Cultural Heritage Center, CEO Lisa Scheller of Silberline Manufacturing, Debrah Cummins Stellato of executive coaching firm The Think Good Company, packaging engineer Charlotte Edwards of Just Born, and Constance Thompson of the Manufacturing Institute. Actors Emma Ackerman and Mary Wright of Touchstone Theatre co-created their re-enactments of Emma Allison and Rebecca Lukens. Former Bethlehem Steel worker Jeanne Brugger and real-life Rosie the Riveter June Rocklin (from the Philadelphia Navy Yard) shared their stories. The event was sponsored by Just Born, the Keystone Savings Foundation, and OraSure Technologies.