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Nicholas Longworth (1782-1863), the "father of American wine" more accurately, father of the first commercially successful American champagne has been lauded as the harbinger of an ideal democratic agrarian republic.1 In his 1858 portrait, Longworth, also known as the "Western Bacchus," stands among the things that brought him wealth: hundreds of acres of land receding in the background, and his grapes (see Figure 1 ).2 Viticulturists had known for decades that the most popular European winegrapes ( Vitis vinifera like Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay) would not grow well in North America under normal circumstances. The cultural importance of finding a native American wine, as well as improving the quality and taste of America's antebellum vinous productions, are at the heart of Longworth's accepted honorific life story. In this celebratory vein, fruit speculators, although quite common in the nineteenth century throughout all regions, have not undergone the same scrutiny as the typical litany of traders, capitalists, and real estate men who populate the story of U.S. territorial and market expansion.3 Many fruit growers across the region did more than just grow fruit. As speculators, they sought to capitalize on their fruit as well as the resale of the "improved" land the fruit grew upon and the margin of profit that could be added by employed labor. Specifically, behind the Longworth horticultural egalitarian myth is a story of wealth made through land speculation and, crucially, decades of labor exploitation that has been obscured by the democratic mythos of American fruit production and fruit tourism.

A Fortune in Fruit: Nicholas Longworth and Grape Speculation in Antebellum Ohio