Charles Cleveland Nutting was born May 25, 1858, in Jacksonville, Illinois. He took his A.B. at Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois, in 1880. He worked as an assayer in Leadville, Colorado, before earning his A.M. from Blackburn College in 1882. Over the next few years, the Smithsonian Institution hired him to conduct expeditions to Central America for the purpose of collecting bird specimens.

Professor Nutting moved to Iowa City in 1886 to begin work on his Ph.D. degree. He worked as an assistant under Samuel Calvin and in fall 1886 joined the faculty of the State University of Iowa as curator of the museum. Nutting was named assistant professor of Zoology in 1888, and full professor in 1889. He became head of the program in 1890.

Among the expeditions he participated in was the 1902 Hawaii/Laysan Island trip, sponsored by the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries. During this expedition he collected bird specimens for the Museum's Laysan Island exhibit. The primary subjects of his research and museum collections were birds and hydroids -- carnivorous sea animals that live in colonies attached to rocks. Although Nutting did not complete his Ph.D. at the State University of Iowa, Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, awarded him the Honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1926.

Nutting married Elizabeth Hersman on August 10, 1886, and had one daughter, Elizabeth. After the death of his first wife, Nutting married Eloise Willis. The couple had two sons, Willis and Charles. Charles C. Nutting died January 23, 1927.