Eugene Dietzgen

Eugene Dietzgen (1862–1929) was a German-American manufacturer of engineering supplies. He was also a writer and promoter of the ideas of his father, the Marxist philosopher Joseph Dietzgen.

Early life Eugene Dietzgen, the eldest son of Joseph Ditzgen, was born in Uckerath, Prussia. At age two he was taken by his father to Tsarist Russia, where he was educated in the Russian language and in his father's trade, tannery. They both returned in 1868.

In 1881, Eugene's father sent him to America to escape the military draft and to hide some of his father's socialist literature; the literature had already landed Joseph in jail a few years before. Eugene was only 19 years old when he arrived in New York City. He began work with a German drafting company, and eventually moved to Chicago.

Business life In Chicago, Dietzgen started the Eugene Dietzgen Drafting Company, which operates today as Dietzgen Corporation, a privately held company. The original building still stands at 218 East 23rd Street, Chicago. By 1906, Dietzgen had two manufacturing plants. The company still exists, and its second building remains as a part of DePaul University, at the corner of Fullerton Avenue and Sheffield, in Chicago's once heavily German neighborhood of Lincoln Park.

Editor and writer Dietzgen actively promoted the work of his father, Joseph, and added additional philosophical material of his own.

Personal life Dietzgen's first wife was unable to conceive; they divorced, and in 1912 Eugene moved to Zurich, Switzerland. There he met his second wife, Jansen, and they had three boys and three girls.