Eleanor Marx 1855 – 1898

Original drawing by Anne Sassoon

Activist, socialist feminist, trade unionist.

16 January 1855 – 31 March 1898

A Tribute to Eleanor Marx by Julia Pascal.

Would Karl Marx have been a major influence on the world stage without the support of his daughter Eleanor? His name is as famous as Einstein, Chaplin, Engels and Shaw. But few have heard of Julia Eleanor Marx, Karl’s third daughter. She was his amanuensis, agent, translator and biographer. She was determined to bring her father’s works to the world view but why do we know so little about Eleanor Marx.

Early Life and History

When she was born as Julia Eleanor in 1855, to Jenny and Karl Marx, her gender was a disappointment to a father who would have preferred a son.  Her birth, at a time when women could not own property or their own bodies, placed her into the second sex. Her family’s poverty and her own lack of schooling, might suggest a limited future but Eleanor’s education was exceptional. The Marx family was financially poor but intellectually wealthy. Educational capital was huge.

As a child she was noted as precocious.  She had a confidence that is unusual in a daughter born into Victorian England. Eleanor, whose nickname was Tussy, was a headstrong and energetic child. She felt entitled to write to Abraham Lincoln to tell him how best to conduct the American Civil War and asked her father to post the letters. He did not!

Adult

Who was Eleanor Marx the adult woman?   She seems to have lived several concurrent lives. Whereas her father was a theorist, Eleanor was a woman of action and a pragmatist.  We know that she was a polymath, a charismatic public speaker, a union organiser, a translator, performer, lover and friend. Eleanor Marx is difficult to categorise. She had so many occupations and was a high-energy, high-achiever in so many areas.

Biographer Yvonne Kapp, says that Eleanor was raised to be a lady but ‘earned her living as a literary hack’.  As well as focusing on preserving her father’s archive she took several, low-paid jobs to support herself and others. She hardly ate or slept.  She was the first translator of Gustave Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary into English. Multilingual, Eleanor was an internationalist. She went to Paris to support the 1871 Commune.

Above all she was an activist. She made speeches to 250,000 people in Hyde Park and to 25,000 in New York’s Brommer’s Union Park.  But her presence was not only on the larger political stages. Eleanor Marx educated herself at street level. She visited starving women in the London slums. These achievements have been buried as Eleanor’s presence has been rendered invisible. But it is she we have to thank for promoting the legal right to an eight-hour working day, a minimum wage, decent employment conditions. She championed the abolition of child labour and sex slavery, the right to trade unions, the vote for working class women.

Personal & Political

Her politics were both personal and political. A free thinker she was a lover of music, theatre , tobacco and champagne. She rejected the concept of bourgeois marriage where women are the property of men and dependent on them for money. Her aims were not merely polemic. She lived her politics. Unmarried she lived ‘in sin’ with Edward Aveling. His callous treatment of her led to her premature death. That her association with him was so negative is a troubling area of her emotional story. Her body was found and the death was by poison. Was it suicide or murder? The jury is still out.

But it is the living Eleanor Marx that we celebrate. It is her multilayered character which remains vibrant.  We might ask what was her ethnic identity? Can Eleanor Marx be seen as a Jew?  She learned Yiddish to mobilise London’s Ashkenazi factory workers.  But she was not a Jew.  Karl Marx, whose ancestors were a mixture of Christian and converted Jews did not identify as a Jew. He believed that religion was the opium of the people. However, Eleanor  proudly identified as Jewish. She even bought a house in Dulwich’s Jew’s Walk.

Other areas where she differed from her father can be seen in her behaviour.  Whereas Karl Marx is often depicted as an intellectual giant who was secreted in libraries with his books and his writings, Eleanor Marx, who also frequented The British Library, was a woman of the people. She understood poverty as her childhood had been one where her mother made frequent visits to the pawn shop so that the family might eat.

Eleanor was hugely influenced by Jenny’s ability to struggle to support others. Both were highly intelligent and hard grafters. Loyalty is a recurring feature in Eleanor’s life. She was capable of long and enduring relationships with  family and friends. Her friendships were with many radical thinkers including Friedrich Engels, Fréderic Lissagaray, Clara Zetkin, George Bernard Shaw, Olive Schreiner, Havelock Ellis. Amy Levy and Keir Hardy.

Literary 

Today few remember her literary achievements. It was Eleanor Marx who pushed to have English literature as a subject of scholarly study and it was Eleanor Marx who was the first to translate Gustave Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary into English. She also amended Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House to give the central character of Nora more agency.  She was founder of the Dogberry Club, which was dedicated to play-readings of Shakespeare and to contemporary dramatists. Her definitive version of Christopher Marlowe’s A Warning to Fair Women was still current until the 1950s. Eleanor Marx wrote The Woman Question: From a Socialist Point of View (with Edward Aveling), The Working Class Movement in America, a biography of Karl Marx and several manifestos. She produced the first translation of Ibsen’s drama An Enemy of the People and completed the English translation of the 1st volume of Das Kapital with five others.

Eleanor Marx would be a celebrity today with her red petticoats, pince-nez, lack of corsets, love of theatre, performance, champagne and cigarettes.She championed fun and good education for everyone.  We would call her a workaholic and a woman who dreamed of making a world fit for all humans to live equally.

Her publication The Woman Question is the first text to promote socialist feminism. If we enjoy education, strive for gender parity and sexual rights, if we still know that we must struggle to take our equal place on the national and international stages, it is thanks to Eleanor Marx’s trailblazing. It is time that we thanked her.

Julia Pascal

References:

Holmes, Rachel, Eleanor Marx: A Life, London, Bloomsbury, 2015

Kapp, Yvonne, Eleanor Marx: A Biography, London, Verso Books, 2018

Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

MINI BIOGRAPHY

Education

Aged 11 went to South Hampstead College but played truant and left aged 15. Mostly home educated by father, Karl Marx and family friend, Friedrich Engels.

Some Key Achievements and Interests

Was involved in the forging of ‘English literature’ as a subject of scholarly study.

Edited Marlowe’s A Warning to Fair Women – her version definitive edition till 1950s.

Co-edited Karl Marx’s works, translating his writings into English and his biographer.

1886 Made the first English translation of Madame Bovary.

Was a driving force behind the setting up of many trade unions. She was behind the demand for a max 8 hour day.  Taught literacy skills to empower leaders.

Travelled the UK and US and western Europe speaking at public meetings and calling on workers to join unions and fight for their rights. Drew an audience of 250,000 to Hyde Park rally, addressed 25,000 at Brommer’s Park, US.

Worked to bring about constitutional change to empower workers.

Issues

Carried out the expected role of caring for her extended family at the same time as campaigning and working to self-finance.

Was heavily criticised for her views on free love and her relationship outside marriage with Aveling.

At rallies found women singled out by the police.

Met resistance from ‘old unionists’ and male dominated TUC.

Suffered from ill health much from overwork.

Connection to Bloomsbury

Lived at different addresses in Bloomsbury over many years.

Frequented the British Museum Reading Room.

Female networks

At the British Museum met and networked with Amy Levy, Annie Besant, Beatrice Potter (Webb), Clementina Black, Olive Schreiner among many others.

Clara Collet.

Writing/publications include:

1886 The Woman Question with Edward Aveling

1891 A Doll’s House Repaired with Israel Zangwill

1891 The Working Class Movement in America with Edward Aveling

Further reading:

Kapp, Y. Eleanor Marx Vols. I [1972] and II [1976]: New York

Holmes, R. Eleanor Marx: London 2014