User:Jakebatinga/sandbox

Frances Nacke Noel (1873-1963) was a German-American immigrant and socialist labor leader based out of Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles. Noel worked on workers’ rights and women’s rights and was known for her cross-class alliances among women strategy.

Early years
Noel was born in 1873 in Saxony, Germany. She was raised in the second story living space of a furniture factory, where her father worked as superintendent. She had five siblings and spent her youth raising those younger than her. When she became a teenager she began studying to become a kindergarten teacher, but she eventually decided that instead, she wanted to leave Germany for the United States. She first came to New York, but did not like the German-American community there, so she left after one year. She then came to Chicago, where her interest in politics started. Noel arrived in Chicago just after the 1893 depression, which exposed her to a community of labor reformers. In Chicago she was exposed to the political ideas of socialist Eugene Debs, whose ideas greatly influenced her. Then in 1895, she moved to Denver. While Chicago sparked an interest in politics for Noel, a specific event in Denver inspired her to become a women’s and workers’ rights leader. Colorado granted women the right to vote in 1893, so the election of 1895 marked the first time that Noel would vote. Noel saw that ballots given to working class women were already filled out, and when she questioned this, she was told that these women did not know how to vote. This drove Noel to become a lifelong advocate of women’s suffrage and workers’ rights.

Personal life
In 1902, Noel was introduced to P.D. Noel through Job Harriman, who she married that same year. Frances and P.D. Noel had one son who they named Francis Noel, and one son who died while still an infant.

Politics and activism
After joining the Socialist Party in 1896, Frances Nacke Noel ran as a socialist for office in Denver but lost. Noel remained in Denver and worked in the suffrage movement until 1899, when she moved to Los Angeles. Noel worked as a waitress and teacher while still remaining in the suffrage and political communities when she first moved to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles she met a man who greatly influenced her politics, Job Harriman. Harriman, an important leader in the Los Angeles socialist community, lived with Noel and exposed her to socialism and suffrage movements in depth. Noel continued her activism and traveled the world meeting with important socialist organizers and intellectuals such as Clara Zetkin and August Bebel.

Frances Nacke Noel believed that the Women’s Suffrage Movement and the labor movements of the early twentieth century were linked, and she attempted to unify the two movements. This became clear at the Los Angeles Women’s Conference of 1911, where Noel attempted to bring the two groups together. The conference was a meeting of several women’s groups who wanted to improve the lives and political capabilities of women. Noel was instrumental in bringing women’s labor groups and unions who fought for the rights of women workers, to also fight for the right for women to vote. However, even though Noel did succeed in bringing the groups together and gathering membership for the women’s suffrage movement, the 1911 organization did not succeed for more than a few months.

Later in 1911, Frances Nacke Noel became one of the founders and organizers of the Wage Earners Suffrage League, a group that continued her previous efforts by uniting workers with suffrage movements. Noel worked to enlist as many people as she could to make the organization stronger, and she even convinced many members of the socialist party to join.

In 1911, while serving as an important activist for the Wage Earners Suffrage League, Noel also became the president of the Los Angeles branch of the Women’s International Union Label League, another organization dedicated to the fusion of labor and women’s emancipation. As president, Noel led a campaign to get as many working women and union men to support suffrage as she could. She argued that it was important for men to support women’s rights and suffrage for reasons such as this: “It is for you also to decide October 10th if it is not wiser to win the women of the working class for your political strength rather than allow them to be an indifferent and competing element against your interest at the polls” (Frances Nacke Noel). In other words, Noel argued that women’s suffrage was inevitable, so men could either support it and have the women’s support in return, or not support it and create an enemy.

In October of 1911, the right for women to vote was granted in Los Angeles. Historians largely credit Frances Nacke Noel’s organization strategy of combining the working class movements with the suffrage movement. After the 1911 suffrage success, Noel began organization to form a Los Angeles chapter of the Women’s Trade Union League, which was the most established organization that emphasized unity among working women across all trades and employment. From 1911 on, the Women’s Trade Union League became Noel primary focus. In an important speech to unionize women, Noel said "Collective bargaining alone can wrest from the special privileged few the power and control of government, to the end that the people rule (Frances Nacke Noel). Noel served on the board and helped establish the Los Angeles chapter. While Noel was very influential at getting women and men inspired to pass women’s voting laws, she—along with the Women’s Trade Union League—was less successful at unionization of women. This was because of two reasons: 1) Many women were afraid or disinterested in unionization; 2) Many women still believed that their place was in the home, and therefore the industrial work they were doing was temporary. Noel found that unionization in Los Angeles was very hard, and unionization of women in Los Angeles was even harder.

Through the Women’s Trade Union League, Frances Nacke Noel created Camp Aliso in 1915. Camp Aliso was a camp located in San Dimas Canyon of Los Angeles. The purpose of the camp was to give working women a place to vacation and relieve stress while emphasizing the importance of unity of working class women. While the camp worked well the first year, in 1916 the camp was destroyed by cold weather, and there were not enough funds to rebuild it. That same year, the Los Angeles branch of the Women’s Trade Union league went bankrupt and closed down by 1917.

Another role that Frances Nacke Noel took on was intermediary between middle class women and working class women. Noel was a member of both the Friday Morning Club and the Women’s City Club. Noel influenced the Friday Morning Club, which consisted of mainly middle class women, to join with working class women to improve their conditions. Due to Noel’s influences, the Friday Morning Club began investigations into the conditions of working class women’s employment in Los Angeles. During this time, Noel was the director of public affairs for the Women’s City Club, where she could organize and coordinate with the Friday Morning Club. Noel believed that cooperation between middle and working class women was important for the labor movement. "She must organize to unite with organized womanhood in every walk of life" (Frances Nacke Noel).

Role in the Women’s Central Committee
In the 1920s, Frances Nacke Noel became the chairperson for the first chapter of the Women’s Central Committee. Through this position, she continued to unify women of different backgrounds and classes through organization. During her time as chairperson, Noel said “The most effective action is that which emanates through force of numbers. However, women of the labor movement cannot develop strength of unity until they learn to know each other and of other’s activities” (Frances Nacke Noel). This quote emphasizes Noel’s belief of and constant practice of unifying all women for a common goal. During her time as the chairperson for the Women’s Central Committee, Noel helped with several investigations into working class conditions of workers in Los Angeles, as well as the unification of working women and middle class women of Los Angeles.

Frances Nacke Noel served as chairperson of the Women’s Central Committee until 1924. In 1926, Noel’s main goals changed from labor organization to birth control advocacy. Noel helped set up birth control facilities in Los Angeles and became president of the Los Angeles branch of the American Birth Control League. In the 1930s she stepped down from leadership positions. For the rest of her life she continued to be a part of labor organizations, but was less active and spent much of her time taking care of her husband. Frances Nacke Noel died in 1963.

Conclusion
Frances Nacke Noel spent her life advocating for the unification of all women, both working class and others, in order to grant women the right to vote, help working class women, and achieve equality for women. Noel believed that the right to vote, and the fight against the exploitation of workers was a mission that all women had to unify in order to achieve: "Both [movements] were created through rebellion against oppression, and both must continue their organized strength to remain as a bulwark against the forces of social life which constantly seek the exploitation of Labor and woman. Both movements have the highest standard of civilization for their program, and neither can wander far apart from each other without inviting disaster" (Frances Nacke Noel).