Rosenfield, Louise Frankel

1908 - 2002  (94 years)

• Name	Rosenfield, Louise Frankel  [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]
  Born	7 Mar 1908	Des Moines, Polk, Iowa, USA   [1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]
  Gender	Female
  Residence	1910	Des Moines, Polk, Iowa, USA   [4]
  	Age: 2; Marital Status: Single; Relation to Head of House: Daughter
  Residence	1920	Des Moines, Polk, Iowa, USA   [3]
  	Age: 11; Marital Status: Single; Relation to Head of House: Daughter
  Residence	1 Jan 1925	Polk County, Iowa, USA   [7]
  	Age: 16; Marital Status: Single; Relation to Head of House: Daughter
  Residence	1930	Des Moines, Polk, Iowa, USA   [8]
  	Age: 22; Marital Status: Single; Relation to Head of House: Daughter
  Died	23 Aug 2002	Augusta, Des Moines, Iowa, USA   [1, 6, 9, 11, 21]
  Person ID	I14055	Our Family
  Last Modified	16 Jan 2024

  
  

  Father	Rosenfield, Meyer,   b. 22 Sep 1864, Rock Island, Rock Island, Illinois, USA ,   d. 19 Apr 1929, Augusta, Des Moines, Iowa, USA  (Age 64 years)
  Relationship	natural
  Mother	Frankel, Rose,   b. 18 Dec 1873, Oskaloosa, Mahaska, Iowa, USA ,   d. 15 Sep 1960, Des Moines, Polk, Iowa, USA  (Age 86 years)
  Relationship	natural
  Married	16 Jan 1900	Augusta, Des Moines, Iowa, USA   [2]
  Family ID	F7405	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Noun, Maurice Henry,   b. 20 Sep 1903, Germany ,   d. Sep 1968, Augusta, Des Moines, Iowa, USA  (Age 64 years)
  Married	19 Dec 1936	Augusta, Des Moines, Iowa, USA   [1, 2]
  Divorced	May 1968  [16]
  Children	+ 1. Noun, Susan Louise
  Last Modified	16 Jan 2024
  Family ID	F4662	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  Louise was a feminist, social activist, philanthropist, and civil libertarian. An Iowa native, Noun wrote extensively on the history of feminism in Iowa and the United States, writing four books on the subject and an autobiography. As president of the Iowa Civil Liberties Union from 1964-1972, she was actively involved and helped fund the Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District case. In 1992, she accomplished a long-term goal and co-founded the Iowa Women's Archives at the University of Iowa with activist Mary Louise Smith. In failing health, Noun committed suicide on August 23, 2002. Louise's father, Meyer Rosenfield, was a successful owner of a Younkers department store. Her mother, Rose Frankel Rosenfield was a community activist who was very involved in the women's suffrage movement in Iowa and was close friends with Flora Dunlap, the president of the Iowa Women's Suffrage Association and the first president of the Iowa League of Women Voters. In a 1985 interview with Howard Simmons, Noun asserted that her father was more reticent and that her mother "ran the show with a firm hand." Both parents were children of German-Jewish immigrants. Louise Rosenfield had two siblings, Ruth and Joseph. Louise attended West High School in Des Moines, attending half-day sessions due to overcrowded conditions. She finished high school at the newly established Roosevelt High School in Des Moines and graduated in 1925. She pursued a bachelor's degree at Grinnell College, transferring to Wellesley College for her junior year, but returning to Grinnell upon hearing of her father's declining health. She graduated from Grinnell in 1929, later earning her M.A. in art history and museum management from Radcliffe College, graduating in 1933. She briefly attended Drake University Law School in 1967 for one semester. In 1936, Louise married Maurice "Maurie" Noun, a successful Des Moines dermatologist. After Maurice Noun returned from serving in World War II, the couple adopted a daughter, Susan Louise, in 1946. During these years, Louise worked as a volunteer in community affairs. The couple divorced in 1967. Soon after, Maurice suffered a fatal heart attack. Louise never remarried. Louise began her art collection at age thirteen when she was given an oil painting by Harry Lachman on her birthday, a story that was published in the Des Moines Register. While taking graduate courses in art history at Radcliffe College, Louise's interest in art grew; she later professed that she collected, without focus, works by Arthur Dove, Lyonel Feininger, and Henry Moore. Louise first collected art by women in 1963, purchasing art by Isabel Bishop. Finding the work without a signature, Louise contacted the artist and developed a friendship. Other works by female artists collected by Louise include Natalia Goncharova, Hannah Höch, Frida Kahlo, Käthe Kollwitz, Gabriele Münter, Agnes Pelton, and Marguerite Zorach. Some female artists protested the idea of women's-only art collections, citing that segregating art collections implied that a women's-only art collection was of a lesser value. One artist Louise collected, Dorothea Tanning, refused to show her work in women's-only art shows. In 1944, Louise Noun joined the Des Moines chapter of the League of Women Voters and served as president in 1948-1949, igniting her long career of activism and philanthropy. Louise served as the president of the Iowa Civil Liberties Union (now the ACLU of Iowa) for eight years from 1964-1972. In the late 1960s, Louise helped finance the landmark U.S. Supreme Court students' rights case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, with her brother Joseph Rosenfield. Louise was a founding member of the Iowa Women's Political Caucus (1973) and the National Organization for Women(NOW) Des Moines chapter, serving as coordinator from 1972 and president from 1972-1974. Louise served on several committees including the Bernie Lorenz Recovery House (1988), of the Young Women's Resource Center (1975-1982), and the American Friends Service Committee. Louise founded the Chrysalis Foundation in 1989, serving as president until her death in 2002. Louise Noun and Mary Louise Smith, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, worked together to found the Iowa Women's Archives at the University of Iowa Main Library. The idea was conceived by Louise in the 1960s while researching Strong-Minded Women: The Emergence of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in Iowa. To fund the archives, Louise sold Frida Kahlo's 1947 painting "Self-Portrait with Loose Hair" at Christie's New York for 1.65 million dollars. The sale set a record for the most expensive work by a Latin American artist ever sold at auction. The painting was originally purchased by Louise for $85,000 in 1983. The University of Iowa Foundation undertook fundraising to contribute half a million dollars for the archives, which opened in 1992. The Louise Noun-Mary Louise Smith Iowa Women's Archives is open to the public and currently contains over 1100 manuscript collections of personal papers and records which record women's history in Iowa and other communities. In declining health, Louise committed suicide by drug overdose, leaving behind a note denouncing the illegality of assisted suicide, which she termed her "final project" in her suicide note. This was in keeping with her personality and beliefs, friends said. "It has kicked off a debate about the importance of people being able to control their own lives, something that was always important to her," said Gil Cranberg, who served with Ms. Noun on the national board of the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1970s. Louise was preceded in death by her daughter Susan, who died one day earlier from cancer. Her grandson Jason Flora is her only immediate survivor.. Louise was a feminist, social activist, philanthropist, and civil libertarian. An Iowa native, Noun wrote extensively on the history of feminism in Iowa and the United States, writing four books on the subject and an autobiography. As president of the Iowa Civil Liberties Union from 1964-1972, she was actively involved and helped fund the Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District case. In 1992, she accomplished a long-term goal and co-founded the Iowa Women's Archives at the University of Iowa with activist Mary Louise Smith. In failing health, Noun committed suicide on August 23, 2002. Louise's father, Meyer Rosenfield, was a successful owner of a Younkers department store. Her mother, Rose Frankel Rosenfield was a community activist who was very involved in the women's suffrage movement in Iowa and was close friends with Flora Dunlap, the president of the Iowa Women's Suffrage Association and the first president of the Iowa League of Women Voters. In a 1985 interview with Howard Simmons, Noun asserted that her father was more reticent and that her mother "ran the show with a firm hand." Both parents were children of German-Jewish immigrants. Louise Rosenfield had two siblings, Ruth and Joseph. Louise attended West High School in Des Moines, attending half-day sessions due to overcrowded conditions. She finished high school at the newly established Roosevelt High School in Des Moines and graduated in 1925. She pursued a bachelor's degree at Grinnell College, transferring to Wellesley College for her junior year, but returning to Grinnell upon hearing of her father's declining health. She graduated from Grinnell in 1929, later earning her M.A. in art history and museum management from Radcliffe College, graduating in 1933. She briefly attended Drake University Law School in 1967 for one semester. In 1936, Louise married Maurice "Maurie" Noun, a successful Des Moines dermatologist. After Maurice Noun returned from serving in World War II, the couple adopted a daughter, Susan Louise, in 1946. During these years, Louise worked as a volunteer in community affairs. The couple divorced in 1967. Soon after, Maurice suffered a fatal heart attack. Louise never remarried. Louise began her art collection at age thirteen when she was given an oil painting by Harry Lachman on her birthday, a story that was published in the Des Moines Register. While taking graduate courses in art history at Radcliffe College, Louise's interest in art grew; she later professed that she collected, without focus, works by Arthur Dove, Lyonel Feininger, and Henry Moore. Louise first collected art by women in 1963, purchasing art by Isabel Bishop. Finding the work without a signature, Louise contacted the artist and developed a friendship. Other works by female artists collected by Louise include Natalia Goncharova, Hannah Höch, Frida Kahlo, Käthe Kollwitz, Gabriele Münter, Agnes Pelton, and Marguerite Zorach. Some female artists protested the idea of women's-only art collections, citing that segregating art collections implied that a women's-only art collection was of a lesser value. One artist Louise collected, Dorothea Tanning, refused to show her work in women's-only art shows. In 1944, Louise Noun joined the Des Moines chapter of the League of Women Voters and served as president in 1948-1949, igniting her long career of activism and philanthropy. Louise served as the president of the Iowa Civil Liberties Union (now the ACLU of Iowa) for eight years from 1964-1972. In the late 1960s, Louise helped finance the landmark U.S. Supreme Court students' rights case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, with her brother Joseph Rosenfield. Louise was a founding member of the Iowa Women's Political Caucus (1973) and the National Organization for Women(NOW) Des Moines chapter, serving as coordinator from 1972 and president from 1972-1974. Louise served on several committees including the Bernie Lorenz Recovery House (1988), of the Young Women's Resource Center (1975-1982), and the American Friends Service Committee. Louise founded the Chrysalis Foundation in 1989, serving as president until her death in 2002. Louise Noun and Mary Louise Smith, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, worked together to found the Iowa Women's Archives at the University of Iowa Main Library. The idea was conceived by Louise in the 1960s while researching Strong-Minded Women: The Emergence of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in Iowa. To fund the archives, Louise sold Frida Kahlo's 1947 painting "Self-Portrait with Loose Hair" at Christie's New York for 1.65 million dollars. The sale set a record for the most expensive work by a Latin American artist ever sold at auction. The painting was originally purchased by Louise for $85,000 in 1983. The University of Iowa Foundation undertook fundraising to contribute half a million dollars for the archives, which opened in 1992. The Louise Noun-Mary Louise Smith Iowa Women's Archives is open to the public and currently contains over 1100 manuscript collections of personal papers and records which record women's history in Iowa and other communities. In declining health, Louise committed suicide by drug overdose, leaving behind a note denouncing the illegality of assisted suicide, which she termed her "final project" in her suicide note. This was in keeping with her personality and beliefs, friends said. "It has kicked off a debate about the importance of people being able to control their own lives, something that was always important to her," said Gil Cranberg, who served with Ms. Noun on the national board of the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1970s. Louise was preceded in death by her daughter Susan, who died one day earlier from cancer. Her grandson Jason Flora is her only immediate survivor.

  
  

• Sources

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