Jenny Ellida Åkesson (April 15, 1867 – February 12, 1941) was a Swedish socialist and labor activist. The daughter of the early Malmö socialist Carolina Åkesson, she belonged to the Malmö women workers' club, the first women's organization in the Swedish social democratic movement, and in 1889 was chosen as one of the bearers of its banner. After moving to Lund, Sweden, she co-founded the city's women workers' union in about 1892 and its Social Democratic women's club in 1906.

Åkesson made the milestones of her private life into public political statements. In 1889, she and the socialist agitator Wilhelm Åhlund rejected both church and civil marriage, instead entering into a union before the Malmö Social Democratic association, an event reported in newspapers across Sweden. The couple announced their first child in the socialist press as "a nihilist girl", a notice that drew widespread coverage, and gave two of their children long strings of names taken from figures ranging from Aristotle to recently executed anarchists. For much of her life, Åkesson lived in poverty, often supporting the family on her own while Åhlund was repeatedly dismissed from work for his political views and was eventually disabled in a workplace accident.

Early life Åkesson was born on April 15, 1867, at Borgergade 54 in Copenhagen, the daughter of Carolina Åkesson (1837–1890), a cleaner and housekeeper, and Hans Åkesson (1835–1922), a shoemaker. Her parents had moved to Denmark because their religious views were at odds with the Church of Sweden. The Copenhagen parish register recorded the family as Mormons and noted that Jenny had been baptized at home, without giving a date, although the family was most likely atheist. When she was three, the family returned to Sweden and settled in Malmö, where the parish register of Malmö Caroli recorded her and her younger brother, both born in Copenhagen, as illegitimate ().

The family was poor. Both parents were involved in the emerging socialist movement, and her mother was one of the earliest women active in the Malmö women workers' club and the Social Democratic Party.

In 1887, at the age of twenty, Åkesson took work as a maid, first in Åhus and then in Gothenburg. In Gothenburg she met her future partner , a Stockholm-born brass caster thirteen years her senior. Åhlund was a political activist and a colleague of the Social Democrat August Palm.

Political organizations Åkesson was active in the labor movement in her own right before her union with Åhlund. By early 1889 she was a member of both the Malmö Social Democratic association () and the Malmö women workers' club (), founded in October 1888 as the first women's organization in the Swedish social democratic movement. In March 1889 the club chose her as one of the four women who would carry its new banner, which was to be ceremonially dedicated at a festival.

After settling in Lund in 1890, she continued her work there. In about 1892 she co-founded the Lund women workers' union (), one of several short-lived women's clubs formed in the wake of the Malmö club, in which she also served as banner-bearer; the union merged with the Lund Social Democratic association () in the mid-1890s. In 1906 she co-founded the Lund Social Democratic women's club (). She remained active in these organizations for as long as her strength allowed, but ill health forced her to withdraw in the 1930s.

Marriage and family as political statements

Unconventional marriage On the evening of Easter Sunday, April 21, 1889, Åkesson and Åhlund entered into a union before the assembled members of the Malmö Social Democratic association at its fourth-anniversary celebration. Their marriage contract stated that, on account of their convictions, they did not wish to marry before either a clerical or a civil authority. The local press described it as the first socialist wedding in Malmö.

The ceremony was led by the association's chairman, the writer , a contributor to the newspaper Arbetet. Wessel spoke on the history and meaning of marriage, argued that Social Democrats in particular had to break with existing customs, then read out the contract and declared the couple husband and wife. Both wore black, and Åkesson wore a myrtle crown. The only other ritual was Åhlund placing a ring on Åkesson's finger with the words "As a memento of this day I give this ring to you, my beloved wife!", after which the members cheered the couple. Congratulatory telegrams arrived from comrades in Ystad and from delegates at the founding congress of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, then meeting in Stockholm.

The marriage contract was printed in full in the newspaper :

The contract was drawn up in two copies, signed by both parties and witnessed by two people, and each partner received a copy.

Unconventional children's names and birth announcement Åkesson raised her children outside both the church and the legal institution of marriage. Although she signed the family's announcements with Åhlund's surname, in the official records she kept her own name and was registered as unmarried () in the censuses of 1890, 1900 and 1910. She and the children were listed as a family unit of their own, separate from Åhlund, within the household.

Åkesson and Åhlund had five children: Vera (born 1890, Helsingborg; later Jönsson), Hebert (born 1891, Lund), Signora, known as Signe (born 1894, Lund), Platus (born 1898, Lund) and Hans Georg (born 1909, Lund; later Röslid). The births of three of them were marked by acts of performative resistance. Vera Josefina Helena (born 1890, Helsingborg) The couple had moved to Helsingborg in 1889, and their first child was born there on February 15, 1890. The parents announced the birth in Arbetet not as that of a daughter but of "a nihilist girl" (), signing the notice "Jenny and Wilhelm Åhlund". The notice was reprinted by newspapers across Sweden, most of them mocking it, and some reading it as an endorsement of revolutionary violence:

(Kristianstad), February 20, under the heading "Young nihilist girl" (): the notice "takes predestination rather far" (Malmö): "a remarkable child to have settled her outlook on life so early" (Uddevalla), February 22, under the heading "A devil of a girl" () Gripen (Södertälje), February 25: "Perhaps the worthy parents' hopes will be put to shame" Falkenbergs Nya Tidning (Falkenberg), February 26, under the heading "Precocious" () (Stockholm), February 26: hoped the child would grow up wiser than her parents and see that true freedom could never be won "by the knife and assassination" Arbetarens Vän (Stockholm), March 7: quoted the notice in a longer attack on socialism and nihilism, hoping that "the pitiable parents'" little daughter would turn out differently

Signora Salvadora Cassarina Weilantina Carola (born 1894, Lund) Born on November 8, 1894, she was, like her younger brother, given a long string of names, most of which appear to allude to anarchists who were in the news in 1893–94:

Signora – Italian for "lady" Salvadora – apparently the Spanish anarchist Santiago Salvador, who bombed the Liceu opera house in Barcelona in November 1893 and was executed on November 21, 1894, two weeks after her birth Cassarina – apparently the Italian anarchist Sante Geronimo Caserio, guillotined in August 1894 for assassinating the French president Sadi Carnot; his name was also given to her brother as Kassarino Weilantina – apparently the French anarchist Auguste Vaillant, guillotined in February 1894 for bombing the Chamber of Deputies in Paris Carola – possibly after her activist grandmother, Carolina Åkesson

Platus Aristoteles Prins af Marat Ravokol Pallas Kassarino Angeolillo Lusefer (1898–1903, Lund) Born on April 21, 1898, the son was registered as illegitimate and left unbaptized. He died on September 18, 1903, at the age of five. Each of his eight given names carried its own reference:

Platus – apparently Plato, the Greek philosopher Aristoteles – the Greek philosopher Aristotle Prins af Marat ("Prince of Marat") – Axel Danielsson, who signed his articles "Marat" after the French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat Ravokol – the French anarchist Ravachol, guillotined in 1892 for a series of bombings in Paris Pallas – the Spanish anarchist Paulino Pallás, executed in 1893 for a bomb attack on General Arsenio Martínez Campos in Barcelona Kassarino – apparently the Italian anarchist Sante Geronimo Caserio Angeolillo – the Italian anarchist Michele Angiolillo, executed in 1897 for assassinating the Spanish prime minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo Lusefer – the anarchist magazine Lucifer – ljusbringaren ("Lucifer – the Light-Bringer")

Hardship and later life For long periods Åkesson supported the home and children on her own. Åhlund traveled as an agitator, and the couple's socialist activity cost him his job several times and the family their home. In February 1890, the month in which Åkesson gave birth to her first child and lost her mother, Åhlund was dismissed once again – in the words of Axel Danielsson, "thrown onto the street with wife and child". In 1902 he lost his left arm in a factory accident, and in 1907 his subsequent post as factory gatekeeper after siding with strikers. Åkesson helped support the household by doing domestic day-work for other families; in the 1910 census she was listed as a housekeeper and Åhlund as a former factory gatekeeper.

From Christmas 1922, illness kept Åkesson from paid work. The couple were then living in a single damp room in Lund that also served as their kitchen, and into which water seeped from the yard in heavy rain, as the syndicalist newspaper Arbetaren reported in 1923 in a profile of Åhlund as "a forgotten veteran" of the labor movement. In October 1923 the local trade-union body, Lunds fackliga Centralorganisation, issued a public appeal for funds for Åhlund, noting that illness in the family had made their situation still more desperate. Åhlund died in Lund on December 1, 1926.

Death and burial Åkesson died in Lund on February 12, 1941, at the age of 73. In the official death register she was recorded as Jenny Elida Åkesson Röslid, a housekeeper, and as unmarried; the causes of death were given as influenza and chronic myocarditis. She is buried with her partner, Wilhelm Åhlund, in the Northern Cemetery () in Lund.

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