Charles Sumner Plumb was born to David Henry and Helen Mar (Wallace) Plumb in Westfield, Massachusetts on April 21, 1860. He was educated at the Massachusetts Agricultural College and was later awarded honorary doctorates from Purdue University (1935) and Ohio State University (1937). He married Helen P. Gladwin (1862-1940) on October 14, 1886, and the couple had two children, Helen Gladwin and Winthrop Gladwin. Plumb began his career as the Associate Editor of the Rural New Yorker (1883-1884) and served as the First Assistant at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York before coming to the University of Tennessee in 1887. Here, he served as a Professor of Agriculture and Assistant Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station until 1890. Plumb went on to work at Purdue University, where he held positions as Visiting Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station (1890-1891), Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station (1891-1902), Professor of Agricultural Science (1890-1893), and Professor of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (1893-1902). In 1902, he accepted a position at Ohio State University as Professor of Animal Husbandry, where he remained until he retired in 1931. Over the course of his career, Plumb wrote a number of books, including Types and Breeds of Farm Animals (1906). Charles Plumb died in Columbus, Ohio on March 4, 1939.