What happened to Freddy Demuth? (Marx's illegitimate son?)

[Gorilla]

Karl Marx's maid, Helene Demuth, had an illegtimate son named Frederick Lewis Demuth. Many biographers believe that Marx was the father. Now, all I've been able to gather from Wikipedia etc. is the boy lived from 1851-1929 and was given out to foster care as an infant.

Does anyone know how his life ended up? Did he go to university, what did he do for a career, etc.

[Manic Impressive]

He lived in the east end of London which was and is a very poor area and had no children. I can't remember what he did but I think he was a taxi driver (I'll look it up). Being in foster care and being a proletariat from the east end would have meant 0% chance of going to university. And it's Henry Fredrick Demuth changed to Fredrick Lewis Demuth

[Manic Impressive]

Lived in Hackney and was a skilled lathe-operator working in factories and a stalwart of the Amalgamated Engineering Union and a founding member of Hackney Labour party. Remembered by colleagues as a quiet man who never talked about his family.
(from Francis Wheen's Karl Marx biography)
Although I'm sure someone will be along shortly saying you're spreading capitalist propaganda and that Marx was a paragon of virtue :rolleyes:

[ZeroNowhere]

Although I'm sure someone will be along shortly saying you're spreading capitalist propaganda and that Marx was a paragon of virtue :rolleyes:They wouldn't be the first (http://marxmyths.org/terrell-carver/article.htm), and hopefully not the last.

[Manic Impressive]

Well that has not taken an unbiased look at it in my opinion there's a few letters it mentions but does not quote. But I do agree with the first part of the conclusion

We will never know about this ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. Why we should care is another question. Marx might appear a model family man, in a qualified sense (given his need to ‘do right’ by them all in a bourgeois world), but has there been an industry devoted to projecting him in the guise of model heterosexual male? He was notably low key on these issues (though not entirely silent; see P-MMx ch. 9).
Any evidence on either side of the argument is inconclusive and today why should we even care either way it makes no difference to anyone. My comment was more about people who get almost emotionally involved in defending Marx's honour which I have seen on this site before. But thanks for the article it was an interesting read.

[Historian]

Karl Marx's son Frederick Lewis Demuth was born in Dean Street. His mother Helene (Lenchen) Demuth was a friend of Marie Lewis who worked in Dean Street as a charwoman - Marie Lewis lived a few streets away from the Marx family in a slum area of Wych St.
Marie Lewis adopted the baby Fredrick and there is a record of her receiving payments from Engels via his housekeeper. Marx himself left his son to sink or swim in the London slums.
Freddy had dark hair and eyes like his father Karl Marx and was a trade Unionist a lathe operator and later a printer at fleet street, an account of his birth and adoption is to be found in letters written by the housekeeper of Engels, Louise Freyberger. These letters are with the International Institute of social history at Amsterdam. Marx's illegitimate son Fredrick Lewis Demuth lived in Block C of the Peabody Buildings Great Wild Street until he died in 1929. He often taken by his foster mother to visit the daughters of Karl Mark at their house in Camden - His foster Marie Lewis continued to visit Helene Demuth after the family had moved away from Dean street. Freddy Demuth had strong socialist views. During one of Valdimar Lenin's visits to London he stayed Freddy Demuth, it was common knowledge he was Karl Marx's son. Eleanor Mark the daughter of Karl Marx often wrote to her half brother Freddy Demuth.

[cb9's_unity]

Historian, congratulations on your first post, hopefully there are many more. Though from the little I've read on the subject it isn't as clear cut as you make it. I believe Marx's daughters continued to care about Demuth, but didn't explicitly recognize him as their half-brother.

Either way, this is definitely more of a chit-chat type subject. The only really important thing about Marx is his writing. Anything about his personal life is just fun academic stuff.

There are certainly some interesting dynamics surrounding why he might not have recognized the child of his own. To have an illegitimate child would have damaged his reputation. This is obviously a shitty and indefensible reason to not take the child as your own, but it does put some insight into how Marx thought of himself in his relation to 19th century society. Even today, the audience will find it irresistible to attach the authors character to his writings. Unlike Engels, Marx chose to marry his longtime partner, and didn't focus on supporting radical social positions as much as other socialists in that era. I have to wonder if it is because he didn't want to be alienate the socially conservative working class that his economic message appealed to.

In the end though, I don't think there is any definitive proof that the child was Marx's. And thus its impossible to make really strong judgements on his character through this incident alone.