The Rhinelander Case (1925)

Alice Jones was  the daughter of work-class English immigrants.Her mother was known to be

white,while her father was mixed.Leonard "Kip"Rhinelander was the son of one of the richest men in New York.In 1921 Leonard, met began a romance with with Alice Beatrice Jones, a domestic.The two met while Leonard was attending the Orchard Stamford,Connecticut,an inpatient clinic he was attending to help him overcome extreme shyness and cure his stuttering.They had a three-year romance before marrying at the New Rochelle,New York courthouse on October 14,1924,shortly after Leonard turned 21.His father pushed the annulment lawsuit brought by his son only weeks after the wedding,which Leonard charged Alice with deceiving him as to her true race.The prosecution argued that if he known Alice was "not white,"he would not have married her.Her love letters were read in court and she was made to show her breasts to the judge and jury (in private),she won:from her breasts Leonard would have known she was black.While Alice looked white,acted white and lived white,her father was clearly part black,which made her black by the too by the One Drop Rule.Either way Leonard had to.Later in 1929,Alice agreed to divorce in exchange for a small monthly pension,with the stroke of a pen a Nevada judge erased Leonard' "social error."According to the terms of the settlement,Leonard paid Alice a lump sum of $32,500 and $3,600 per year for life if she disown the would disown the family name.Alice outlive her ex husband by 50 years,passing away in 1989.On her gravestone read the name Alice J.Rhinelander.