Maria Skłodowska
was born in Warsaw, in the Russian partition of Poland, on 7 November 1867, as the fifth and youngest child of well-known teachers Bronisława, née Boguska, and Władysław Skłodowski.[8] Maria's older siblings were Zofia (born 1862), Józef (1863), Bronisława (1865) and Helena (1866).[9]

Władysław Skłodowski with daughters (from left) Maria, Bronisława, Helena, 1890


On both the paternal and maternal sides, the family had lost their property and fortunes through patriotic involvements in Polish national uprisings aimed at restoring Poland's independence (the most recent had been the January Uprising of 1863–65).[10] This condemned the subsequent generation, including Maria, her elder sisters and her brother, to a difficult struggle to get ahead in life.[10]
Maria's paternal grandfather, Józef Skłodowski, had been a respected teacher in Lublin, where he taught the young Bolesław Prus,[11] who would become a leading figure in Polish literature.[12] Her father, Władysław Skłodowski, taught mathematics and physics, subjects that Maria was to pursue, and was also director of two Warsaw gymnasia for boys.[9] After Russian authorities eliminated laboratory instruction from the Polish schools, he brought much of the laboratory equipment home, and instructed his children in its use.[9]
The father was eventually fired by his Russian supervisors for pro-Polish sentiments, and forced to take lower-paying posts; the family also lost money on a bad investment, and eventually chose to supplement their income by lodging boys in the house.[9] Maria's mother Bronisława operated a prestigious Warsaw boarding school for girls; she resigned from the position after Maria was born.[9] She died of tuberculosis in May 1878, when Maria was ten years old.[9] Less than three years earlier, Maria's oldest sibling, Zofia, had died of typhus contracted from a boarder.[9] Maria's father was an atheist; her mother a devout Catholic.[13] The deaths of Maria's mother and sister caused her to give up Catholicism and become agnostic.[14]