May Day 2010

To mark May Day 2010, which in the U.S. will be a day of mass demonstrations against the ongoing anti-immigrant political offensive, I am providing link to the Hathi Trust scan of The Working-Class Movement in America by Edward Aveling and Eleanor Marx (Karl Marx’s youngest daughter). This fascinating account of their 1886 speaking tour of the U.S. provides a vivid look at the state of the class struggle in America in the late nineteenth century. I particularly recommend looking at Chapter IX (The Cowboys). Eleanor Marx made a second trip to the U.S., accompanying Frederick Engels, in 1888. Tragically, she took her own life in 1898, due in no small part to a callous betrayal by Aveling. Eleanor Marx was an important translator, lecturer, journalist and organizer, whose place in the history of the Marxist movement deserves greater recognition.