Nolan, Mae Ella (1886–1973)

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Nolan, Mae Ella (1886–1973)

U.S. Republican congressional representative (January 23, 1923–March 3, 1925) who was the first woman elected to Congress to serve her husband's unexpired term. Born Mae Ella Hunt on September 20, 1886, in San Francisco, California; died on July 9, 1973, in Sacramento, California; attended public schools, St. Vincent's Convent, and the Ayres Business College in San Francisco; married John I. Nolan (a politician), in 1913 (died 1922).

Elected to complete her late husband's unexpired term in the U.S. House of Representatives (1923); became the first woman to serve as chair of a committee in the House of Representatives (1923).

Born in San Francisco on September 20, 1886, Mae Ella Hunt was educated in public schools, at St. Vincent's Convent, and at the Ayres Business College in San Francisco. In 1913, she married John I. Nolan, a California politician who had recently been elected to the House of Representatives on Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party (Bull Moose) ticket. Less than ten years later, and one week after his reelection to a sixth term in Congress, her husband died. On January 23, 1923, a special election was held to fill his unexpired term and the subsequent term. Running against three male opponents, Nolan handily defeated her closest challenger by over 4,000 votes. Barely three years after American women gained the right to vote, she became the first woman to be elected to Congress to complete her husband's unexpired term. She served the one month remaining in the 67th Congress, and the full term of the 68th Congress, during which she was the only woman in Congress.

Assigned to the Labor Committee (which in the pre-Depression years was somewhat of a dumping ground for first-term members of Congress), Nolan made good her campaign pledge to carry out her husband's issues, which included labor legislation and his proposal to introduce a minimum daily wage of three dollars for federal employees. Having received the backing of the Union Labor Party during her campaign, Nolan opposed the Equal Rights Amendment in support of the American Federation of Labor, which rejected it on the grounds that it would eliminate hard-won safeguards for women. (Many other prominent women in the public sphere then opposed

the amendment for the same reason.) She also served on the Woman Suffrage Committee, and in December 1923 took over as chair of the Committee on Expenditure in the Post Office Department, thus becoming the first woman to head a congressional committee. During her one complete term in Congress, she also helped gain passage of several bills important to her congressional district, including one authorizing construction of a federal building and another which transferred the Palace of Fine Arts from the Presidio to the city of San Francisco. Nolan never made a single speech during her terms in Congress, and did not seek reelection to a second full term. She returned to San Francisco, and later moved to Sacramento, where she died on July 9, 1973.