Love on Trial: An American Scandal in Black and White

Love on Trial: An American Scandal in Black and White
Earl Lewis and Heidi Ardizzone
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001
Rare Book Collection
Vanderbilt University Special Collections

American studies scholar, Heidi Ardizzone, and social historian, Earl Lewis, wrote Love on Trial to examine the Rhinelander v. Rhinelander divorce case, which sparked public debates over racial passing, interracial relationships, and sex in the 1920s.

The case Rhinelander v. Rhinelander was between Leonard “Kip” Rhinelander and his wife Alice Jones, whom he sued for an annulment, claiming that Jones being multiracial and passing as white was hidden from him. Unlike many states in the early twentieth century, New York did not have laws against interracial marriage, but his legal team argued that if Rhinelander knew she was passing as white, he would not have married her. 

Jones’s defense stated that Rhineland was aware of her race. Evidence included testimonies of friends and family and her lawyer had her appear nude before the judge and jury. For the case’s discussion of sex and nudity as evidence in addition to the Rhinelander family’s wealthy status, the case received abundant, national publicity. In the end, the court decided that the claim annulment was invalid, siding with Jones’s defense.