The Life of Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels, (1820-1895), was a German communist philosopher and son of a prominent textile manufacturer. Throughout his adolescence Engels was very defiant, rebelling against his father’s extremely religious and conservative ways. In 1834 he met Dr. Clausen, a German literature and history teacher at his school. Engels’ love for writing began during his time learning in Dr. Clausen’s class. He began writing articles, Letters from Wuppertal, in a Hamburg newspaper using an alias to obscure his identity from his strict father. Many of his compositions were based on his negativity towards his father’s religion, Pietism, which was a regenerated version of Lutheranism and focused on more dedication to the faith. Others were centered on the barbaric ways he felt people were being treated.

Although Engels’ desire was to study law at a university, his father insisted he work at one of the family businesses. In 1842 Engels went on to work in one of his father’s cotton mills in Manchester, England and fell in love with Mary Burns, an Irish factory worker. He became more aware of the environment that textile workers were being subjected to. He despised the appalling conditions of the factories as well as the worker’s homes. Throughout his life Engels felt that common laborers were poorly treated, and his love for Burns only fueled his bias against society. This bias is noticeably portrayed in Condition of the Working Class in England, published in 1844, which he is best known for today. In this book Engels described, in great lengths, the atmosphere in which the factory employees lived.

Before completing his book, Engels visited Karl Marx, a former editor for the German newspaper Rheinische Zeitung. Engels had m...

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...1911), (18 February 2014).

Cohen, “Engels, Friedrich.”

Wikipedia contributors, "Rheinische Zeitung," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,

(18 February 2014).

Oscar J. Hammen, "Friedrich Engels," Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014, (18 February 2014).

Friedrich Engels, “The Condition of the Working Class in England,” (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1892), pp. 45, 48-53.

Ibid.

Ibid.

James Walvin, “Slavery and the British,” History Today, March 2002, pp. 48-50.

Colleen A. Vasconcellos, "Children in the Slave Trade," Children and Youth in History, Item #141, (19 February 2014).