From the Chicago Tribune:
Rep. McCombie and the Chicago Tribune Honor Lottie Holman O’Neill for Women’s History Month:
Lottie O’Neill was accompanied by more than 1,000 women when she walked down a flag-draped aisle in the legislative chamber and took a seat in the fifth row on the third day of January in 1923. The gallery was packed with suffragists who, like O’Neill’s escorts that day, had come to Springfield to witness a historic event: the swearing-in of Illinois’ first female state legislator.
A Tribune reporter heard: “A high soprano scream from a woman who is an expert on the eight hour day legislation, three yells and a giggle from a dignified Chicago club woman, who nearly wobbled off the chair on which she was standing; seven simultaneous songs from nine different groups; yells, individual and collective, the blowing of horns and the enthusiastic but noncommittal handclapping of the men of the assembly.”