Karl Marx is known throughout the world for his political theory, but it was his youngest daughter, Eleanor, who put that theory into practice. Fiercely intelligent and quick-witted, she was heavily involved with socialist movements and early trade unionism, and she was a strong campaigner for the rights of working-class women and Jews. She lived an extraordinary life, and proved that she should be remembered as so much more than ‘just’ Karl Marx’s daughter.

The first years of Eleanor’s life were spent in poverty, the family living in a crowded, two-room flat in London. She was a sickly baby and not expected to live long – yet, soon enough, she grew in strength and charmed her family, including her father, who had initially regarded Eleanor’s birth as a disappointment due to her sex. It was her older sister, Jenny, who was Marx’s favourite, but he had once remarked that ‘Tussy [Eleanor’s nickname] is me’, and it is little wonder why.

While Marx wrote Das Kapital in his study, little Eleanor played at his feet. He would tell her a story about an antihero named Hans Röckle, which gave her lessons on Marx’s critique of political economy and fostered an interest in politics from a young age. She wrote letters of advice to Abraham Lincoln at the age of seven, and by three she could recite whole passages of Shakespeare. She was, undoubtedly, a child prodigy, and her mother labelled her ‘political from top to toe’.

At sixteen, Eleanor became her father’s secretary, and she also worked on translating and editing volumes of Das Kapital. She had a gift for languages, and even taught herself Norwegian in order to translate two of Henrik Ibsen’s plays into English, becoming the first to translate ‘An Enemy of the People’ in 1888. As well as translation work, Eleanor was also a teacher in Brighton for a time, and acted as carer for her parents until her father’s death in 1883, following her mother who had died in 1881.

It was after Marx’s death that Eleanor’s political career began in earnest. In 1884, she joined the Social Democratic Federation and was elected to its executive, but splits in the movement led to Eleanor leaving and forming the Socialist League, alongside Edward Aveling and William Morris. She would eventually enter into a ‘free union’ with Aveling – a married man – which lasted until her death. The pair became a strong force in the socialist movement and frequently toured both Britain and abroad, giving speeches. Eleanor in particular was a gifted orator, her voice confident and incapable of being dull, as friend George Bernard Shaw recalled.

Eleanor’s greatest work was done with the working-class, who she campaigned for tirelessly for most of her life. A notable incident was her attendance at Bloody Sunday in 1887, when thousands of demonstrators converged on London after a year of economic hardship. Eleanor urged them to take on the police and parliament, and called those who did not cowards. 

Her fervour for revolution tempered slightly throughout her life, as she became more and more involved with trade unions. She situated herself at the heart of New Unionism, becoming a founder of the Gas Workers and General Labourers Union, which earned her the nickname, ‘Our Old Stoker’.

She wanted to help those who had previously been excluded from unionism – namely, women and Jews. Jewish workers in the East End had faced antisemitism in the labour movement; Eleanor worked with them to establish their presence within it.

As for women, Eleanor demonstrated a consistent concern for women’s lives, and she wrote several pamphlets on the matter, including The Woman Question (1886). This work tackled her father’s omission of the structural inequality that women of all classes faced – an issue Eleanor could sympathise with, being a woman born into poverty. 

“The life of woman does not coincide with that of man,” she wrote, in this text which would become a cornerstone for socialist-feminism and earned Eleanor the title of foremother of the movement.

Eleanor campaigned strongly for the eight-hour working day and for the establishment of an international workers’ day, which eventually came to fruition in the form of May Day. On the very first May Day in 1890, women workers crowded the platform to hear her speak, ending her speech with a quote from Shelley: “Ye are many – they are few”.

“we aim at a time when there will no longer be one class supporting two others, but the unemployed both at the top and the bottom of society will be got rid of… this is not the end but only the beginning of the struggle… we must speak for the cause daily, and make the men, and especially the women that we meet, come into the ranks to help us.”

Eleanor Marx, at the 1890 May Day rally

A particular achievement that Eleanor was admired for was the establishment of women’s branches of trade unions. She founded the first women’s branch of the gas workers union, which improved the lives of many ‘unskilled’ women workers; furthermore, her work with the women of the Crosse and Blackwell factory brought the company to its knees, after she had organised 400 of them into a union, demanded better working conditions and pay, and went on strike. 

She was truly a force to be reckoned with.

But Eleanor’s life was soon to come crumbling down. She overworked herself for her entire life and was often in delicate physical and mental health. In 1887, Aveling, whom she had lived with at 7 Jews Walk, abandoned her, removing furniture from the house while she was at a meeting. Nevertheless, Eleanor still supported him through his kidney disease and paid for his surgery.

A year later, Aveling was discovered to have married a young actress in secret – the latest in a long line of infidelities – and had set her up in a house using Eleanor’s money. Learning this, Eleanor changed her will, removing Aveling as chief beneficiary. 

A few days after, Eleanor sent her housekeeper, Gerty, to fetch chloroform and prussic acid from the chemist. Gerty later discovered her barely breathing in her bed, having swallowed the acid. Eleanor, tragically, died before help could arrive.

Eleanor’s biographer, Rachel Holmes, has posited that Aveling murdered Eleanor, but the official verdict was suicide. Many mourners attended her funeral, including her friend, Will Thorne, whom she had helped during her work with trade unions. He praised her ‘generosity of spirit’, eventually breaking down in tears as he spoke.

Eleanor Marx was a remarkable, accomplished woman who challenged boundaries and wasn’t afraid to stand up for what was right. She was able to change the world for the better, and her contributions to socialism still lives today. 

“Eleanor Marx’s death was tragic,” Holmes writes, “her life was not.”

Sources:

• Alexander, Sally, ‘Eleanor Marx’s Political Legacy—self sacrifice or self‐realisation?’, Women’s History Review, 16.4 (2007), 595-616
• Eleanor Marx | Campaigner | Blue Plaques | English Heritage (english-heritage.org.uk)
• Eleanor Marx – TUC 150 Stories
• ‘Miss Marx’ Film: Who Was Eleanor Marx, Daughter Of Karl Marx? – HistoryExtra