1. Mae Ella Nolan was an American politician who became the fourth woman to serve in the United States Congress, the first woman elected to Congress from California, the first woman to chair a Congressional committee, and the first to fill the seat left vacant by her husband's death.
Mae Nolan took her seat in the United States House of Representatives in 1923.
Mae Nolan attended public schools, St Vincent's Convent, and Ayres Business College of San Francisco.
Mae Nolan married Republican US Representative John Ignatius Nolan in 1913.
Mae Nolan's husband died on November 18,1922, near the end of the 67th Congress; he had been re-elected to the 68th Congress, which would come into existence on March 4,1923.
Mae Nolan was elected to fill both vacancies, and served from January 23,1923, to March 3,1925.
Mae Nolan was the fourth woman elected to Congress, after Jeannette Rankin, Alice Mary Robertson, and Winnifred Sprague Mason Huck.
Mae Nolan was a Catholic, hence she was the first woman from such a background who served in the federal legislature.
Mae Nolan supported her late husband's agenda on minimum wage, child labor laws, and education.
Mae Nolan distanced herself from the women's suffrage movement by dropping her membership in the Woman Suffrage Committee, depending on support from labor, which was unsupportive.
Mae Nolan was not a candidate for renomination in 1924 to the 69th Congress, saying that "Politics is entirely too masculine to have any attraction for feminine responsibilities".