James Patrick Noonan was born on December 15, 1878 in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. He was the son of Thomas P. Noonan and Bridget Kemmey. His father was a farmer in St. Louis County whose family came from Ireland and settled in Missouri in 1850. He spent his boyhood mainly in manual labor of various kinds.
Young Noonan attended school until he was about thirteen but, left an orphan at an early age.
On the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898 Noonan enlisted as a private and after his discharge the next year became an electric lineman in St. Louis.
In 1901 he joined the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and for the next twenty-eight years was identified with the history of that organization. At twenty-four he was president of his local union, the next year president of the Missouri and Illinois District Council, and in 1904 vice-president of the international organization with headquarters at Springfield, Illinois. In this capacity Noonan served throughout the internal struggle of 1908 to 1913 which threatened to disrupt the union, and in 1917, when President Frank Joseph McNulty went on leave of absence, became acting president and two years later president, with headquarters after 1920 in Washington. He had an enormous capacity for work and was thorough and conscientious, a good fighter when the need arose but more often a skilled diplomat who won the respect of the employers who sat opposite him at the council table. Under his pacific and progressive leadership from 1919 to 1929 his organization made rapid progress toward solidarity and business efficiency.
Meanwhile he was elected in 1922 fifth vice-president of the Building Trades Department of the American Federation of Labor, later a member of the National Board of Jurisdictional Awards for the Building Trades, and in 1924 a member of the executive council of the Federation.
He was appointed by Governor Pinchot a member of Pennsylvania's Giant Power Board and by Secretary of Commerce Hoover a member of the St. Lawrence Waterway Commission. He served on numerous committees, including the committee on seasonal operation in the construction industry of the President's Conference on Unemployment from 1921 to 1924.
Noonan was fifth vice-president of the American Federation of Labor and third vice-president of the Building Trades Department at the time of his death. As an authority on the effect of electric power on labor and labor organizations Noonan was made the only American labor delegate to the World Power Conference at London in 1924 and submitted a paper on "Labour's Part in Power Production".
Noonan was a member of the Elks and of the Congressional Country Club.
A heavy-set man, broad-shouldered and almost completely bald but erect, alert, and energetic in his movements, Noonan owed his popularity to his friendliness, his personal charm, and his frank and candid manner of approaching all questions. But the qualities which kept him for many years an outstanding figure in the labor movement were his practical common sense, his honesty, his broad interests, and his ability to adapt himself to circumstances and opportunities.
Noonan married Inez M. Mitchell at Clayton, Missouri on June 26, 1901.
