Charles William Dabney was born on June 19th, 1855 to Robert Lewis Dabney (1820-1898) and Margaret Lavinia Morrison Dabney (1823-1908). Charles Dabney became president of the University of Tennessee in 1887. Frustrated with what he considered the University's reactionary nature, he quickly embarked on a campaign of radical reform. He made agricultural and mechanical courses mandatory, added six new four-year courses in science, updated the physics curriculum, admitted the university's first female students, began the Summer School of the South, ended the military regimen, doubled the size of the faculty, and formed both the home economics and law departments. In 1894 Dabney took a leave of absence from the university (though he continued to hold the position of president) in order to accept an appointment by President Grover Cleveland as assistant secretary of agriculture. He returned to UT in late fall 1897. Dabney then accepted the presidency at the University of Cincinnati. He died on June 15, 1945.

Theodore Roosevelt was born October 27, 1858 in New York City. He attended Harvard University, where he studied biology. In 1881, he was elected to the New York General Assembly where he became a leader in the Republican Party. When the Spanish-American War started, Roosevelt was running the Department of the Navy. In 1898 he was elected Governor and eventually Vice President to William McKinley. After McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt became the 26th President of the United States. Roosevelt died January 16, 1919.