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A Modern Cinderella: Race, Sexuality, and Social Class in the Rhinelander Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Earl Lewis  and
Heidi Ardizzone
Earl Lewis
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Heidi Ardizzone
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

On November 13, 1924, the first public announcements of white scion Leonard Kip Rhinelander's secret marriage to a working-class “colored” woman, Alice Jones, exploded across the front pages of New York newspapers. Although Rhinelander, a wealthy white socialite, ignored family orders and stayed with his wife through the first week or so of the scandal, few were surprised when he ultimately left her and filed an annulment suit. While New York did not outlaw interracial marriages, Leonard's suit reflected the extent of public sentiment against such marriages. Claiming he had not known Alice was black and would not have married her if he had, Leonard, acutely aware of his class station, nonetheless based his request to dissolve the marriage on prohibitions against interracial unions. It is perhaps surprising, therefore, that the jury of twelve white married men refused the Rhinelander heir his annulment and upheld the marriage, there-by accepting Alice's version of events and actions.

Type
Workers in Racially-stratified Societies
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 51 , April 1997 , pp. 129 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1997

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References

NOTES

1. Matthews, Ralph, “Modern Cinderellas: They Made Their Own Slippers, Crashed Color Line to Fame and Fortune,” September 20, 1947, n.p., in Charles A. Barn eu Papers, Part Three: Subject Files on Black Americans, 1918–1967, Series I: Race Relations, 1923–1965, Chicago Historical Society, microform ed. (Frederick, Maryland, 1984)Google ScholarReel 7, File 378–2, 810.

2. Ottley, Roi, “5 Million U.S. White Negroes,” Ebony, 05 1948,Google Scholar 28. In fact, this article specifies that Alice was considered a “Cinderella girl” by “her colored associates in New Rochelle.” To avoid confusion, we use first names to refer to the Rhinelanders and their family members. Leonard was more commonly referred to as “Kip” by the media.

3. In her brief analysis of the presence and development of “Cinderella” and other European folktales in the United States, Jane Yolen connects its popularity in a rags-to-riches form here to “the American creed…that even a poor boy can grow up to become president [and its] unliberated corollary…that even a poor girl can grow up and become the president's wife.” “America's Cinderella,” in Cinderella: A Folklore Casebook, ed. Dundes, Alan (New York, 1982), 296.Google Scholar

4. Whatever its early incarnations, Cinderella in America became equated with “sudden recognition or wealth”; The Oxford American Dictionary, sv. “Cinderella” (New York, 1982).Google Scholar

5. For an excellent analysis of this historical shift in the Cinderella story, and its relationship to industrialization and the emergence of capitalist class-based societies, see Panttaja, Elisabeth, “Going Up in the World: Class in ‘Cinderella,’” Western Folklore 52 (1993): 85–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. The passing of the Immigration Exclusion Act in 1924 represented the culmination of decades of nativist anti-immigration activism and legal restriction. The act limited and in some case virtually excluded immigration from certain nations, based largely on ethnic and racial grounds. The same year also saw the congressional decision to confer citizenship on all registered Native American tribes, but specifying that such citizenship did not repudiate their status as wards of the federal government. These movements, along with the already- institutionalized disenfranchisement of African-Americans, effectively limited full citizenship to whites, and particularly to those represented in the first century of European immigration. In addition, an increasing number of states considered or passed antimiscegenation laws at the turn of the century.

7. New Rochelle Standard Star, November 13, 1924. 1.

8. New York Times, November 14, 1924, 1.

9. “Jones Girl Linked With Old Family By Wedding Here,” New Rochelle Standard Star, November 14. 1924, 1.

10. All papers at least mentioned the Jones's occupations and background, with local coverage being the most detailed. For example, her hometown paper emphasized Alice's former jobs “employed in various New Rochelle and Pelham houses…and now a member of a family far more exclusive than those in which she was at one time a servant.” The headline summarized the situation: “Pretty Smile Greets Those Who See Wife of Kip Rhinelander. Former Nurse and Waitress in New Rochelle and Pelham Homes Now Member of Family of Prominent New Yorkers.” New Rochelle Standard Star, November 14, 1924, 1.

11. Peiss, Kathy Lee, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in New York City,1880 to 1920 (Philadelphia, 1986):Google ScholarMeyerowitz, Joanne, Women Adrift: Independent Wage Earners in Chicago, 1880–1930 (Chicago, 1988).Google Scholar

12. For a discussion of black immigrants in New York city during this time period, see Watkins-Owens, Irma, Blood Relations: Caribbean Immigrants and the Harlem Community, 1900–1930 (Bloomington, 1996).Google Scholar

13. In 1905 and 1915 the state census listed the entire family as “white.” and the New Rochelle city directories, which identified “colored” residents until 1918, did not list them so. In 1925. after the marriage announcements, but before the trial, state enumerators listed George Jones as “colored” but Alice as “white.” New York State Census, Westchester Country. City of New Rochelle, District 6, Ward 2, June 1, 1915, Westchester County Historical Society (WCHS); Richmond's Directory of New Rochelle, Including thePeihams (Yonkers, 1906–1928).Google Scholar

14. Forstall, Marion R., interview with Henrietta Mills, 12 8, 1980,Google Scholar in “Voices and Profiles of New Rochelle's Rich. Color-Full History (Fall 1980; A Sequel),” New Rochelle Public Library, Local History Collection, January 5, 1981.

15. Forstall, Marion R., interview with Oscar Parnell, 04 2, 1980,Google Scholar “Voices and Profiles of New Rochelle's Rich, Color-Full History.” New Rochelle Public Library, Local History Collection, May 19, 1980.

16. Another interview, of a woman who had moved to New Rochelle in the 1930s or 1940s, indicated that most of the members of her husband's black church were domestic workers and that “most people came as housekeepers and workers for the whites in New Rochelle.” Forstall, Marion R., interview with Willie Rayne Carrington, 04 3, 1980,Google Scholar in “Voices and Profiles of New Rochelle's Rich, Color-Full History“ New Rochelle Public Library, Local History Collection, May 19, 1980.

17. For documentation of African-American women's work as domestic laborers, see Hunter, Tera, “Dominance And Resistance: The Politics Of Wage Household Labor In New South Atlanta,” Labor History 34 (1993): 205–20;CrossRefGoogle ScholarClark-Lewis, Elizabeth, Living In, Living Out: African American Domestics in Washington DC, 1910–1940 (Washington, 1994).Google Scholar

18. A Cleveland Gazette editorial complained about the New York reporters's “slurs… ever referring repeatedly to her ‘alley home’”; December 26, 1925, 2.

19. George Jones's objection to being called a cab driver made the headlines in at least one paper: “Hate Flares In Annulment Battle Of Kip. Alice's Father Hurls Epithet at Mills for Reference to ‘Hack Driver,’ Unexpected Outbreak Startles Court Room.” Detroit Free Press, December 4, 1925, 3.

20. One article referred to Alice as “[t]he New Rochelle girl who at one time was a nursemaid [and] has thus passed over the heads of many hundreds of ‘would be's’ to secure this high honor in society.” New Rochelle Standard Star, March 11, 1925, 1.

21. This admission was widely reported (e.g., “Colored Blood Admitted By Mrs. Rhinelander's Counsel … Davis Grants Client's Origin ‘To Simplify Matters,’” New Rochelle Standard Star, November 10, 1925, 1) and reflected in the final round of complaints and answers filed after the start of the trial; New York Supreme Court, Westchester County, “Answer to Second Amended Complaint, December 3, 1925.

22. For further discussion of the significance of these assumptions of race, the question of racial passing, and white American tensions over determining racial identity, see Ardizzone, Heidi, “Body of Evidence: Racial Identity in the Rhinelander Case,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association, Pittsburgh, 11 9–12, 1995.Google Scholar

23. As Davis's counterpart, Mills (a more experienced former judge on the verge of retirement) led a team that included his son, Isaac Mills, Jr., and Leon Jacobs, who seems to have been a long-time Rhinelander family lawyer.

24. New Rochelle Standard Star, December 2, 1925, 1–2.

25. Greenberg, Jack, “Domestic Relations Law,” Race Relations and American Law (New York, 1959).Google Scholar

26. New York Daily News, November 21, 1925, 13; Richmond Times Dispatch, November 17, 1925, 1; Richmond News Leader, November 28, 1925, 8.

27. Baltimore Afro-American, December 12, 1925, 8.

28. Du Bois, W.E.B., “Rhinelander,” The Crisis, 01, 1926,Google Scholar 112–13. Alice was indeed listed in the Social Register as Leonard's wife. This listing was later omitted and Leonard himself was soon dropped from the Register. “Kip Rhinelander's Bride in Recent Social Register of New York Blue-Bloods, Pelham Road Girl Listed With Socially Elect By Advisory Committee,” New Rochelle Standard Star, March 11, 1925, 1.

29. In his closing argument Mills summarized his depiction of Alice, referring to “the charms of an evil woman…comparable in her ascendancy [sic] over young Rhinelander to Delilah in her enslavement of Samson; to Salome; to the dusky Cleopatra with her hold on Mark Anthony; comparable in her charms to Helen of Troy.” “End Near In Case of Rhinelander, to Go to Jury Following Brief Charge On Friday.” Birmingham Age-Herald, December 4. 1925.

30. In effect Mills was, to paraphrase Toni Morrison, “playing in the dark.” As Morrison has argued. Americans often talk about race by highlighting its absence. Reviewing the work of a number of American novelists, Morrison observed that even when African-Americans were not central characters the hint of their presence defined both whiteness and Americanness; a dark presence, body, or suggestion created the social and narrative space for others to create themselves as white and normative. Morrison, Toni, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and Literary Imagination (Cambridge, 1992).Google Scholar

31. New York Supreme Court, Westchester County, #3190–1924, “Affidavit in Opposition to Application for Additional Counsel Fees,” July 13, 1926.

32. New York Daily News, December 3, 1925, 4.

33. “Review of the News: A Day in the Country,” New Yorker, Nov ember 28, 1925, 9.

34. “Rhinelander Mess Ends! Davis Cried Out In Protest. Kip's Attorney Merciless and Heartless in Questioning Alice's Mother,” Cleveland Gazette, December 5, 1925, 1. See also “Mother Bares Soul. Compelled to Admit Girlhood Indiscretion as Kip's Lawyer Tears Away Veil Guarding Secret 40 Years,” New York Daily Mirror, November 26, 1924, 4.

35. Poughkeepsie Eagle-News, November 30, 1925, 1.

36. New York Sun, December 2, 1925, 17.

37. It should be noted that Leonard's mother had died in 1915, and one of his brothers had perished in World War One. Besides his father Leonard had a married brother, a sister who lived on the West Coast, and several uncles, aunts, and cousins in the New York area.

38. Baltimore Afro-American, November 14, 1925, 11.

39. Hartford Courant, November 22, 1925, Sect. 3, 2.

40. Chicago Defender, November 28, 1925, Sect. 2, 12.

41. For a discussion of the development of racial theories into general understandings of intelligence, morality, and heredity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see Gould, Stephen Jay, The Mismeasure of Man (New York, 1996).Google Scholar For the effect of class-based ideologies on “race” see Stolcke, Verena, Race Class and Marriage in Nineteenth Century Cuba, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor, 1989);Google ScholarDominguez, Virginia, White by Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana (New Brunswick, 1986).Google Scholar

42. Baltimore Afro-American, November 28, 1925, 9.

43. The following sample of headlines illustrates the variation in perceptions and coverage of these letters and the courtship: “Rhinelander A Fluent Wooer. Lost Stammer as He Began Courting, Hospital Record Reveals,” New York Daily News, November 11, 1925, 2–3; “‘Innocent’ Kip Tells of His First Thrill,” New York Daily Mirror, November 18, 1925, 4; “Rhinelander Stammers Out His Story of Illicit Love. Rich Youth Admits He Took Initiative,” Atlanta Constitution, November 12, 1925, 4; “Kip without Sin Till He Met Colored Bride, He Swears,” New York Daily Mirror, November 12, 1925, 1.

44. Detroit Times, November 13, 1925, 3.

45. “Rhinelander to Settle, Report on Adjournment, Mystery Surrounds Unexpected Action of Plaintiff's Counsel—Deny Trial is Off for Good—New Letters Hinted,” New Rochelle Standard Star, November 20, 1925, 1–2; “‘Mystery’ Note Halts Quizzing of Rhine-lander,” Birmingham Age-Herald, November 20, 1924, 2.

46. Chicago Defender, November 28, 1925, 1.

47. One editorial described Leonard as “[s]tuttering like a big horse fly caught on the sticky fly paper”; Dallas Morning Register, November 27, 1925, 4. Another devoted an entire article to the “Defects of Youth Listed by Doctor” including an inferiority complex, stammering, and being tongue-tied; New York Daily Mirror, November 11, 1925, 3.

48. Hartford Courant, November 30, 1925, 12.

49. New York Daily Mirror, November 19, 1925, 5.

50. Detroit Free Press, November 19, 1925.

51. Detroit Free Press, November 18, 1925, 1, 12.

52. The New York black weekly Amsterdam News, for example, pointed out that if he had married in Mississippi, “all he would have to do, when Kip (Leonard) got ready to skip, would be suddenly find out that Alice had a few drops of ‘colored’ blood in her veins, and— presto!—the marriage would have been all null and void.” December 2, 1925, n.p.

53. Philadelphia Tribune, January 2, 1925, 4. Virginia papers blamed New York's lack of an antimiscegenation law for the marriage and the need for a trial to annul it. Richmond Times-Dispatch, November 12, 1925, 6; November 29, 1925. 6.

54. Chicago Defender, NMovember 22, 1925, 1; Chicago Broad Ax, November 21, 1925, 1.

55. New York World, December 6, 1925, 1.

56. Detroit Free Press, November 29, 1925, 1; New York World, December 6, 1925, 19.

57. Baltimore Afro-American, December 12, 1925, 1.

58. New York World, December 7, 1925, 12.

59. Opportunity, January 1926, 4.

60. New York Age, December 12, 1925, 4.

61. “A Tragedy Of Color,” Reno Evening Gazette, November 16, 1925, 4.