Helga Karlsen
Norwegian politician (1882–1936)
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. Coming from humble origins, she gradually made her way up through the organisation of the labour movement. 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.
Early life and career
Karlsen was born in Oslo (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.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5704343. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1882, 1936, 1927 and 1933.
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This entry incorporates text from “Helga Karlsen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.