Artist: Robert Wadsworth Grafton (1876–1936)
Charles Sumner Plumb
PLUMB, CHARLES SUMNER (1860–1939), inducted by 1915
Charles Sumner Plumb studied animal science in his birth state, at Massachusetts Agricultural College. After serving as associate editor of the Rural New Yorker, he directed the experiment stations in New York, Tennessee, and Indiana. While in Indiana, he established the Indiana State Dairy Association. In 1902, Plumb accepted a teaching position at Ohio State University, serving for thirty-seven years. He coached the second-place team in the National Collegiate Livestock Judging Contest in 1903 and the winning team in 1904. Professor Plumb’s many publications, including Types and Breeds of Farm Animals, were principal texts for years. He received honorary doctorates from his alma mater, Purdue University, and Ohio State. Although his biography was not featured in Wentworth’s 1920 catalogue of the Saddle & Sirloin collection, Alvin Sanders mentioned that Plumb was one of the early inductees into the portrait gallery in his 1915 volume, At the Sign of the Stock Yards Inn. He was honored with a tribute dinner at the Saddle & Sirloin Club in 1923.
Source: Saddle & Sirloin Guidebook 2026, p. 159