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(Jenny Julia) Eleanor Marx (later Marx-Aveling)

(1855-1898), Socialist writer and activist

Sitter in 1 portrait
Exposed to politics from a young age through her father Karl Marx, socialist activism would be Eleanor Marx's lifelong cause. The Paris Commune of 1871 had a profound effect on her and she helped to organise aid for French refugees in London. She left the Social Democratic Federation and helped co-found the Socialist League with William Morris amongst others. In the 1880s she performed in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House and learnt Norwegian to translate his plays. A member of the Women's Trade Union League, she supported the Matchgirl's strike of 1888 and the London Dock Strike of 1889. Disagreements with collaborators and the discovery that her partner Edward Aveling, had secretly married a young actress contributed to her suicide in 1897.

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(Jenny Julia) Eleanor Marx (later Marx-Aveling), by Grace Black (later Grace Human) - NPG 6771

(Jenny Julia) Eleanor Marx (later Marx-Aveling)

by Grace Black (later Grace Human)
pencil, 1881
On display in Room 21 on Floor 2 at the National Portrait Gallery
NPG 6771

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