Love on Trial: An American Scandal in Black and White [Hardcover]

Earl Lewis (Author), Heidi Ardizzone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 2001

Upon marrying Leonard Rhinelander in 1924, Alice Jones, a former nanny, became the first black woman to be listed in the Social Register as a member of one of New York's wealthiest families. When their marriage became a national scandal, Alice and Leonard found themselves thrust into the glare of public scrutiny-and into a Westchester courtroom. Earl Lewis and Heidi Ardizzone tell the story of the marriage and the annulment trial that opened the lives of two vastly different families to the media. Tracking the public obsession withthe case, they unfold a story with a dramatic cast of characters. Would the jury believe Alice's claim that her husband had known she was of mixed racial ancestry before their marriage? Would Leonard's social status sway the verdict? How much ancestry made one black? "Love on Trial" recalls a struggle that raised questions about race and identity.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While modern readers may not be familiar with the notorious Rhinelander trial of 1924, Lewis (dean of graduate studies at the University of Michigan) and Ardizzone (visiting assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame) offer a detailed account of the various people and complex issues that made it sensational. Young, white and a member of New York society, Leonard Rhinelander spent some three years courting working-class Alice Jones. After the wedding and a few nights of marital bliss at Jones's parents' home, young Lenny sued to have his marriage annulled, claiming he didn't know Alice wasn't white. In fact, Alice's mother was white; her father was an Englishman the son of a white woman and an unidentified man who may been Indian who never entertained the question of his race. While Alice's family never consciously tried to "pass" for white, they lived in a sort of racial limbo, letting their social status define them. It was left to an upstate New York judge and jury to determine whether Alice was "white," "colored" or "Negro" terms not clearly defined but certainly hotly debated in 1920s America. In addition to being a legal quagmire, the Rhinelander trial unleashed a Pandora's box of morality questions (in the end, it seems neither premarital sex or interracial sex was as scandalous as cross-class marriage). Although not graceful writers, Lewis and Ardizzone cleverly build their narrative on the progression of the trial, careful not to foreshadow the verdict. Small photo insets give a scrapbook-look to this dense but fascinating volume. (May)Forecast: If Norton's marketing effectively reaches the core academic audience for this book and jump-starts it through word of mouth, students of African-American and women's studies will find this an engrossing read as will historians of many stripes despite its clunky prose.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

First published as a scholarly article and later reorganized and rewritten, this work results from a collaboration between Lewis (history, African American studies, Univ. of Michigan) and Ardizzone, his former graduate student. The authors researched the events surrounding the 1925 annulment trial in a Westchester County courtroom involving Leonard Rhinelander, son of a privileged, aristocratic New York family, who married Alice Jones, a beautiful working-class woman of mixed-race ancestry. Pressured to end the marriage, young Rhinelander claimed that Jones had misrepresented her race. Using dozens of American newspapers as primary sources, the authors explore racial ambiguity during a period of stiffening segregation policy. At times, the text is repetitive or bloated with conjecture, dragging out the undoubtedly painful scandal like the newspaper coverage of the day. Those accounts described Jones as dusky, octoroon, quadroon, colored, Negro, mulatto, and black, distinctions that faded with the pursuit of palpable civil rights decades later. An intriguing story; recommended for public and academic libraries. Elaine Machleder, Bronx, NY

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (May 7, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393050130
• ISBN-13: 978-0393050134
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #803,982 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Author's comment--not a review, January 29, 2004

By 

Heidi Ardizzone (South Bend, IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love on Trial: An American Scandal in Black and White (Hardcover)

I'm glad to see ongoing interest in this book (which is available in paperback now.) I'm even happier to see ongoing discussion of the issues it raises. That was one of the reasons we wrote the book. I'd just like to briefly correct a few misreadings in A.D. Powell's review. I am certainly not a proponent of one-drop racialism. While it is true that for much of American history, both blacks and whites assumed people of mixed ancestry to have more in common with their black peers than their white, much of my work actually highlights situations where this was not the case. People might certainly have black ancestry they are unaware of, but in the present context I don't advocate that they must identify themselves as black. However, in the 1920s, in some states, if a seeming white person were to be discovered to have a black grandparent or even great grandparent, that person's legal status would shift to black. Virginia was particularly well known for pursuing family trees and make such changes, although they allowed for some Native ancestry in a legally white person. One drop racialism was one of the primary ways white Americans defined race at the turn of the century. It was never the only way, and it was a system full of illogic and contradictions, which we state several times in the book. In fact we talk extensively about the ambiguity of Alice's identity and ancestry, and how that ambiguity challenged American efforts to eliminate an intermediary category between blacks and whites. It is that ambiguity that made the story compelling to us as historians and writers. We don't really know what her father's ethnicity was, and we say so quite clearly. But we do analyze the trial and the news coverage of it primarily in the context of "black and white" as the title suggests. This is because, while Alice and her family never identified themselves as black, the newspaper editors, journalists, and commentators who spun the story for public consumption routinely did. That is, Alice was treated in the press and (we argue) in the courtroom as if she were black.

Elsewhere Ms. Powell has suggested that I should be careful lest my own Italian ancestry lead me to be labelled a mulatto myself. I'm not sure why that would be something I should fear. In the book we discuss the racial ambiguity of the new immigrants, including Italians, Asians, Indians (who are determined to be Caucasian but not white by the Supreme Court in 1924 which may have impacted Alice's legal strategy), Southern Europeans, Slavs, and Mexicans. The mutability, inconsistency, and ambiguity of race in the 20th century reveals race to be essentially a political and cultural system, not one based in biology or logic.

NOTE TO AMAZON: I am the author of this book and would prefer not to have to rate it to have my comments posted. Thank you.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Shameful Chapter in America's Racial History, May 21, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Love on Trial: An American Scandal in Black and White (Hardcover)

Using newspaper articles as its primary source of information, this book chronicles a famous American trial set in the 1920s. A white man from one of the richest families in New York sued his bride for an annulment, charging that she had deceived him about her race. The trial mesmerized the nation with its subtexts of star-crossed lovers, sex, money, and miscegenation. The authors explore the then-accepted guidelines for racial identification and how those principles failed to provide easy resolution in this case. While Love on Trial explores an example of America's shameful racial history, the authors too frequently interrupt a compelling story to remind the reader about the trial's cultural context--including a boring discourse on Al Jolson and his blackface routine. Nevertheless, the book provides insight into our country's unique discomfort about race and, in the process, reminds us that we haven't progressed as far as we might have hoped.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The "O.J. Simpson" case of its time!, December 18, 2001

By 

Fafa Demasio (New York City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love on Trial: An American Scandal in Black and White (Hardcover)

Alice Jones and Leonard Kip Rhinelander meet and fall in love. Alice comes from a modest family originally from England and Leonard comes from a wealthy New York family. After a quiet three-year courtship, Alice, age 23 and Leonard, age 22 finally marry.

It looks like this youthful couple has a promising life together ahead of them. That should be the end of their seemingly innocent love story. The couple lives happily ever after. Right? Wrong.

A few days after the wedding, it is discovered that Alice is from a mixed race background. Her mother is white and father of West Indian descent.

Upon the revelation of this news, Leonard quickly files for an annulment. He claims that he was unaware of his wife's racial background (a daughter of a black man) and that she tricked him into marrying her. Conversely, Alice maintains that her husband knew everything about her and she did not defraud her.

The year is 1924. What happens next is a fascinating and sensational trial. Known as the "Rhinelander case," it brings up several attention-grabbing issues that include how race is viewed in the U.S., especially at that time period - the 1920s.

I would have liked to read a little more about the Alice and Leonard. However, I understand that the book is not a biography on the couple but instead focuses on the trial. In the authors' notes, the reader is told that the families did not grant interviews and expressed no interest in the book. I also found the numerous footnotes within the book a little distracting. It sometimes felt as if I was reading a dissertation instead of a book.

Despite these minor complaints, the subject of "Love on Trial" is of interest. Authors, Lewis and Aridzzone have done an excellent job retracing the events of the case and reconstructing what occurred in the courtroom - this includes the interaction between the two strong-headed opposing lawyers, the examination of Leonard and a point where Alice has to partially disrobe for the jury. Photos are interspersed among the chapters, showing the litigants, crowded courtroom, judge and lawyers to envision the story better.

"Love on Trial" is well researched and detailed with the happenings in the case - from the trial, appellate and New York Supreme Court findings. It also includes the newspaper coverage and public reactions during and after the court case.

If you enjoy reading about trials, watching T.V. programs on court cases or lawyers shows, this is the book for you.

Fafa Demasio