About Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels was born on 28 November 1820 in Barmen, Jülich-Cleves-Berg, Prussia (now Wuppertal, Germany), as eldest son of Friedrich Engels Sr. (1796–1860) and of Elisabeth "Elise" Franziska Mauritia von Haar (1797–1873). The wealthy Engels family owned large cotton-textile mills in Barmen and Salford, both expanding industrial metropoles. Friedrich's parents were devout Pietist Protestants[5] and they raised their children accordingly.

At the age of 13, Engels attended grammar school (Gymnasium) in the adjacent city of Elberfeld but had to leave at 17, due to pressure from his father, who wanted him to become a businessman and start work as a mercantile apprentice in the family firm. After a year in Barmen, the young Engels was, in 1838, sent by his father to undertake an apprenticeship at a trading house in Bremen. His parents expected that he would follow his father into a career in the family business. Their son's revolutionary activities disappointed them. It would be some years before he joined the family firm.