Henry Charles Lea

Henry Charles Lea (September 19, 1825 – October 24, 1909) was an American historian, civic reformer, and political activist. Lea was born and lived in Philadelphia.

His father, Isaac Lea (1792–1886) was a distinguished naturalist and member of the American Philosophical Society, and publisher. Isaac Lea was descended from a Philadelphia Quaker family, and had been born in Wilmington, Delaware. On March 8, 1821, Isaac married Frances Anne Carey (1799–1873), daughter of Mathew Carey, the Philadelphia publisher whose business he ultimately took over. Mathew Carey, born in Ireland in 1760, came to the United States in 1784, escaping prosecution by the British government for his outspoken criticism of Britain's Irish policy. During a period of exile in Paris, Carey had met Benjamin Franklin, for whose print shop he worked. Carey and Isaac Lea's highly successful publishing house printed the works of Thomas Jefferson, Parson Weems, Walter Scott, James Fenimore Cooper, and the first quarto Bible of American manufacture (both the Douay version and the Authorized version).

Irish American theoretical mathematician Eugenius Nulty tutored both Henry Charles Lea and his elder brother the later, pioneer photographic chemist Mathew Carey Lea (called by family “Carey”) at their home in Philadelphia. Nulty not only helped mold Henry Charles Lea as a scholar but also (along with his father’s and grandfather’s connections) opened many an academic door for Lea.

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