Jenny Longuet
Jenny Marx Longuet (left) and her sister,Jenny Laura Marx
Born	Jenny Caroline Marx (1844-05-01)1 May 1844 Paris,Kingdom of France
Died	11 January 1883(1883-01-11) (aged 38) Argenteuil,Third French Republic
Occupation	Language teacher
Spouse	Charles Longuet
Children	6 (includingJean Longuet andEdgar Longuet)
Parents	Karl Marx (father) Jenny von Westphalen (mother)
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 ofJenny von Westphalen Marx andKarl Marx. Briefly a political journalist writing under thepen nameJ. Williams, Longuet taught language classes and had a family of five sons and a daughter before her death tocancer at the age of 38.

Jenny Caroline Marx, known to family and close friends as "Jennychen" to distinguish her from her mother, was born inParis on 1 May 1844, the oldest daughter ofKarl Marx andJenny 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 aFrench 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 thepen name "J. Williams" on the treatment of the Irish political prisoners by the British government.^[2]

She met her future husband, theFrench journalist and radical political activistCharles Longuet in 1871.^[3] The pair became engaged in March 1872 and were married on 10 October the same year in a civil ceremony atSt 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 toOxford 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 theSt 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 atKing'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 ofdiarrhea.^[9] A second son,Jean Laurent Frederick "Johnny" Longuet (1876–1938) fared better, surviving to eventually become a leader of theSocialist 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]

Apolitical 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 ofLa Justice, a radical daily newspaper founded byGeorges 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 ofArgenteuil, 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 newspaperL'Aurore.^[15] A final child, a daughter also named Jenny Longuet, was born in September 1882 and lived until 1952.^[14]

Just four months after the birth of her daughter, Longuet died at Argenteuil on 11 January 1883, at the age of 38, probably fromcancer 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]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toJenny Longuet.

Wikiquote has quotations related toJenny Longuet.

• Jenny Longuet papers at IISG
• Jenny Longuet archive atMarxists Internet Archive

• 1844 births
• 1883 deaths
• People from Paris
• French Marxists
• French activists
• French women activists
• Women Marxists
• People educated at South Hampstead High School
• French people of German-Jewish descent
• Karl Marx
• Deaths from bladder cancer in France
• 19th-century pseudonymous writers
• Pseudonymous women writers
• Jewish communists

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