Jenny Longuet | |
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![]() Jenny Marx Longuet (left) and her sister, Jenny Laura Marx | |
Born | Jenny Caroline Marx 1 May 1844 |
Died | 11 January 1883 | (aged 38)
Occupation | Language teacher |
Spouse | Charles Longuet |
Children | 6 (including Jean Longuet and Edgar Longuet) |
Parents |
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Relatives | Laura Marx (sister) Eleanor Marx (sister) Henry Juta (cousin) Louise Juta (aunt) Heinrich Marx (grandfather) Henriette Pressburg (grandmother) Anton Philips (second cousin) Gerard Philips (second cousin) |
Jenny Caroline Marx Longuet (1 May 1844 – 11 January 1883) was the eldest daughter of Jenny von Westphalen Marx and Karl Marx. Briefly a political journalist writing under the pen name J. Williams, Longuet taught language classes and had a family of five sons and a daughter before her death to cancer at the age of 38.
Biography
[edit]Early years
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1b/Charles_Jenny_Longuet.jpg/220px-Charles_Jenny_Longuet.jpg)
Jenny Caroline Marx, known to family and close friends as "Jennychen" to distinguish her from her mother, was born in Paris on 1 May 1844, the oldest daughter of Karl Marx and Jenny von Westphalen Marx. She was a fragile child but was nevertheless the first of the Marx children to survive childhood.[1]
In 1868, at the age of 24, she accepted a position as a French language teacher in order to help her parents financially.[1] She also contributed a number of articles to the socialist press, in 1870 writing under the pen name "J. Williams" on the treatment of the Irish political prisoners by the British government.[2]
She met her future husband, the French journalist and radical political activist Charles Longuet in 1871.[3] The pair became engaged in March 1872 and were married on 10 October the same year in a civil ceremony at St Pancras registry office,[4] she taking the name Jenny Longuet.[5]
As with her parents, the young couple faced economic hardship in their earliest years.[6] They moved to Oxford soon after their marriage, hoping that Charles could find work as a teacher, but he was unable to do so.[6] Jenny earned a meagre income for the pair working as a private tutor, giving lessons in French, German, and singing.[6]
The couple's financial lives became more stable in 1874, when Jenny and Charles found work as teachers, with Jenny holding a position as a German teacher at the St Clement Danes School.[7] The minimal salary she earned at the school was supplemented by giving private lessons.[8] Her husband obtained a position teaching French at King's College, together making enough to maintain a small house in London.[8]
Jenny Longuet was pregnant in almost every year of her married life.[9] She gave birth to a first son in September 1873, but the child died the following summer of diarrhea.[9] A second son, Jean Laurent Frederick "Johnny" Longuet (1876–1938) fared better, surviving to eventually become a leader of the Socialist Party of France.[9]
A third son, born in 1878, mentally challenged and sickly, died at the age of 5,[9] while a fourth, Edgar "Wolf" Longuet (1879–1950) lived a full life, becoming a medical doctor as well as an activist in the French Socialist Party.[10]
Return to France
[edit]A political amnesty granted by the government of France in July 1880 allowed Charles Longuet the opportunity to return to his native country and he was quick to return, taking a position as an editor of La Justice, a radical daily newspaper founded by Georges Clemenceau.[11] By this time, however, Jenny had begun to suffer from cancer and she for a time remained in London with her three sons, to be near her aging parents.[11]
In February 1881 Jenny and the boys moved to France to join her husband.[12] The family settled in the town of Argenteuil, near Paris, where they were regularly visited by the boys' doting grandfather Karl Marx.[13]
Despite her ill health, Jenny delivered another son, Marcel Longuet (1881-1949)[14] who later worked as a journalist, including for the Parisian newspaper L'Aurore.[15] A final child, a daughter also named Jenny Longuet, was born in September 1882 and lived until 1952.[14]
Death and legacy
[edit]Just four months after the birth of her daughter, Longuet died at Argenteuil on 11 January 1883, at the age of 38, probably from cancer of the bladder, a condition which had afflicted her for some time. Her father was too ill to attend the funeral in France; he died two months later.[16]
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Footnotes
[edit]- ^ a b Saul K. Padover, Karl Marx: An Intimate Biography. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1978; pg. 474.
- ^ "Jenny Marx Longuet (Jennychen)," Karl Marx Family Biography, Marxists Internet Archive, www.marxists.org/
- ^ Padover, Karl Marx, pg. 476.
- ^ Francis Wheen. Karl Marx: A Life. London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999; p. 350.
- ^ Padover, Karl Marx, pp. 476-477.
- ^ a b c Padover, Karl Marx, pg. 477.
- ^ Padover, Karl Marx, pp. 477-478.
- ^ a b Padover, Karl Marx, pg. 478.
- ^ a b c d Padover, Karl Marx, pg. 479.
- ^ Padover, Karl Marx, pg. 480.
- ^ a b Padover, Karl Marx, pg. 481.
- ^ Padover, Karl Marx, pg. 482.
- ^ Padover, Karl Marx, pg. 484.
- ^ a b Padover, Karl Marx, pg. 485.
- ^ "Grandsons of Karl Marx lean Left, but differ on heirs of teaching". St. Petersburg Times, 30 May 1948, p 40. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
- ^ Francis Wheen. Karl Marx: A Life. London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999; pp. 379-381.