Helga Aleksandra Karlsen (20 November 1882 – 15 October 1936) was a Norwegian politician for the Labour Party, and the party's first female Member of

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

. Coming from humble origins, she gradually made her way up through the organisation of the

labour movement The labour movement is the collective organisation of working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It can be considere ...

. She served two non-consecutive periods in parliament (1927–30 and 1933–36), but died shortly before she could be elected for a third term. She has been called the Labour Party's foremost female politician in the

interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...

Early life and career

Karlsen was born in

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

(at the time called Kristiania), to rail-road engineer Karl Arnesen (1860 – 1923) and Hilda Alette Torgersdatter (b. 1855). It seems as though her mother died while Helga was still young, and the girl had to go into foster care; in early records she appears under the name of Helga Pettersen. She started working at the age of fourteen, first as a maid, later in a café and in a candy factory. She then worked at a trading company for three years before entering into politics. Karlsen had been involved in the labour movement since she first joined their theatre group in 1899. In the early 1920s, she was elected to the city council for the Labour Party. Here, among other things, she argued against municipal funding for the building of the so-called ''Markus Church'' on

Grünerløkka Grünerløkka () is a borough but also a neighborhood of the city of Oslo, Norway. Grünerløkka became part of the city of Oslo (then Christiania) in 1858. Grünerløkka was traditionally a working class district; since the late 20th century t ...

, on the basis of the acute shortage of housing in the city. Karlsen was also deeply involved in the party's organisation of children's groups.

Member of Parliament

In 1927 she was elected to

as the first female representative of the

Norwegian Labour Party The Labour Party (; , A or Ap; ), formerly The Norwegian Labour Party (, DNA), is a Social democracy, social democratic List of political parties in Norway, political party in Norway. It is positioned on the centre-left of the political spectru ...

. It was during this period that she was fined the sum of

NOK Nok is a village in Jaba, Nigeria, Jaba Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. The village is an archeological site. Archaeology The discovery of terracotta figurines at this location caused its name to be used for the Nok culture, ...

500, for donating money to striking construction workers. After a poor election for the party in 1930, she lost her position, but regained it in 1933. In the meanwhile she was, as the first woman ever, elected chairman of ''Oslo Arbeidersamfunn'' (Oslo Workers' Society) in 1932. In 1935 she participated at the

International Labour Conference The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is one of the firs ...

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. Here she delivered a well-received speech in favour of the 40-hour week. In 1936, while running for a third term in Parliament, Karlsen fell ill. She was rarely unwell, but the busy schedule of the campaign had taken a great toll on her. She died only four days before the election. Karlsen was buried from the

People's House People's Houses () were originally leisure and cultural centres built with the intention of making art and cultural appreciation available to the working classes. The first establishment of this type appeared in Tomsk, Russian Empire in 1882. Soo ...

s in Oslo, where the eulogy was delivered by

Martin Tranmæl Martin Olsen Tranmæl (27 June 1879 – 11 July 1967) was a Norwegian socialist leader from The Norwegian Labour Party. Biography Martin Tranmæl grew up on a middle-sized farm in Melhus Municipality, in Søndre Trondhjem county, Norway. He ...

. She was survived by her husband, Fredrik Emanuel Karlsen (1873 – 1942), whom she had met through the labour movement.

Early life and career

Member of Parliament

References

Further reading