Joseph Carson was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, on July 2, 1883, to prominent Philadelphia lawyer and Pennsylvania Attorney General Hampton Lawrence Carson (1852-1929) and his wife, Anna L. (b. 1854). He had three siblings: Hope, John, and Anna. He and his wife, Edith Guest Bruen, were married in 1908 and had one daughter, Sarah Whelen Carson, born around 1910. In late 1918, Carson traveled to France with the United States Army. He served near Tours as a captain in the Ordnance Department and returned to the United States in February 1919.
From the guide to the Joseph Carson papers, Carson, Joseph papers, 1917-1919, 1918-1919, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)