Family
Joseph Leidy was born on September 9, 1823, to an established Philadelphia family of German extraction. His father, Philip, was a hatter; his mother, Catharine, died when he was young, during childbirth, whereupon his father remarried to his wife's first cousin, Christiana Mellick. Leidy also had a brother named Thomas Leidy. With the support of his stepmother, and after overcoming the opposition of his father (who wanted him to be a sign painter), Leidy studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with his medical degree in 1844.
He married Anna Harden, a woman who took a serious interest in his work and helped him with it on occasion. Their marriage was childless, and they eventually adopted an orphaned seven-year-old girl.
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