Rhinelander v. Rhinelander
His marriage at the age of 21 to Alice Jones, a biracial woman who was a working-class daughter of English immigrants, made national headlines in 1924.
Their 1925 divorce trial highlighted contemporary strains related to the instability of the upper class, as well as racial anxiety about "passing" at a time when New York was a destination for numerous blacks from the South in the Great Migration and immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.
The trial also touched on the vague legal definition of the time as to who was to be considered "white" or "colored," alternately portraying race as biologically determined and knowable or as more fluid.
[1] Rhinelander's mother Adelaide died on September 11, 1915, after sustaining burns when an alcohol lamp on her dressing table exploded.
He settled in the newly formed French Huguenot community of New Rochelle in 1686, where he amassed considerable property holdings, the basis for the family's wealth.
The two met while Rhinelander was attending the Orchard School in Stamford, Connecticut, an inpatient clinic where he was seeking treatment to help him overcome extreme shyness and to cure his stuttering.
[6] Jones was a few years older than Rhinelander and the daughter of English immigrants; her mother was white and her father was of mixed race (then termed "mulatto").
In February 1922, Rhinelander's father, Philip, attempted to end the relationship by sending his son away to Bermuda on a chaperoned excursion that would separate the couple for two years, as he traveled to Washington, D.C., Havana, Panama and California.
Once Jones' ethnicity came into question, the fact that her marriage license identified her as "white" was reported, implying that she had sought to hide her mixed racial ancestry.
The newlyweds rented an apartment in New Rochelle, ordered furniture and moved in with Jones' parents in Pelham Manor while setting up their household.
The editor ignored the threat and on November 13, 1924, the New Rochelle Standard Star printed the story with the headline, "Rhinelander's Son Marries Daughter of Colored Man.
Other papers picked up the story but most were also careful to omit the racial angle, choosing instead of focus on the differences in Rhinelander and Jones’ social class.
The Hearst-owned tabloid New York Daily Mirror, however, ran a front-page banner headline: "RHINELANDER WEDS NEGRESS/Society dumbfounded."
And the black newspaper The Pittsburgh Courier referred to both parties' races, with the front-page headline "Caucasian '400' Stunned Over Marriage of White Millionaire to Colored Beauty.
"[11] Most larger city papers were wary of printing such a scandalous story, deferential to or fearful of the Rhinelanders' wealth and prominent social status.
But after two weeks under a threat of disinheritance, he succumbed to his family's demands that he leave Jones and signed an annulment complaint that his father's lawyers had prepared.
"[15] "It was a year-long event marked by several bizarre developments, including rumors of bribery and extortion, public reading of Leonard's love-letters, the partial disrobing of the defendant so that the jurors could examine her skin.
[15] The jury viewed her shoulders, back and legs, concluding that she was indeed "colored" and that Rhinelander had to have been aware that she had some black ancestry, and thus could be reasonably sure that she had not tried to deceive him about her racial identity.
[23] After Rhinelander's death, his father, Philip, followed the advice of the family attorney and continued to pay Jones her yearly settlement money.
She passes in order to get away from the racism of her own aunts, who allow her to live in poverty, which leaves her to face problems of both race and class, both of which arise in the Rhinelander case.
[30] The case also served as the basis for the movie Night of the Quarter Moon (1959), starring Julie London and John Drew Barrymore.
