Joseph Longworth (2 October 1813 – 29 December 1883) was an American lawyer, real-estate magnate, art collector, and philanthropist. A member of the wealthy Longworth family, he helped shape cultural life in Cincinnati for a generation. Longworth sold the parcel of land that would become Eden Park, including the land that would be used for the Cincinnati Art Museum. He also contributed to the construction of the museum and served as its first president. Longworth was the "prime mover" for the Art Academy of Cincinnati, arranging the movement of the school to Eden Park, planning its integration with the museum, and endowing it with $370,000. In 2013 the original Art Academy building was renamed the Longworth Wing of the Cincinnati Art Museum in his honor.
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Personal life
Longworth was the only son of the wealthy real estate magnate and vintner Nicholas Longworth and his wife Susanna Howell (1786-1865). He was named for his uncle Joseph Longworth (1769-1838), who later died in the Steamer Pulaski disaster. He grew up in Cincinnati and was educated at Yale University. While he received a law degree he did not frequently practice law, instead occupying himself with the management of the family fortune that his father had built up through his real estate business. Longworth substantially expanded his family holdings, buying up farmland in what would become the suburbs of Cincinnati.
On May 13, 1841, he married Anna "Annie" Maria Rives (10 October 1822 – 31 January 1862), the daughter of Landon Cabell Rives (1790-1870) and Anna Maria Towles (1795-1843). The couple had three children: the judge and art patron Nicholas Longworth II, the founder of Rookwood Pottery Maria Longworth Storer, and the surgeon Landon Rives Longworth. Until 1848 the family lived in the family estate "Belmont", which is now the Taft Museum of Art, until moving out to the Rookwood estate in present-day Hyde Park.