Agricultural Citizenship and the German Winemakers of Los Angeles County, 1853–1891

Newly arrived in 1850s California, a group of German immigrants adopted viticulture and founded Anaheim as a wine colony. Along with industry leaders and boosters, they helped expand the region’s commercial wine industry from its Spanish and Mexican roots, using viticulture as a vehicle of Americanization in California. Per the observations of wine industrialists, trade groups, and boosters, these German immigrants represented the American ideal of agricultural citizenship as a barometer of belonging in California. This notion was rooted in large-scale land ownership and relied on modern technology, shipping infrastructure, agricultural science, marketing, and wage workers. Significantly, Anaheim’s German wine growers also employed modern agribusiness techniques that laid the foundation for the citrus industry in the early twentieth century.