At the conclusion of our research it had become quite obvious that “passing” did not adequately explain Alice’s life. She and her family seemed to live in between the worlds of black and white, a difficult but not unknown act in the age of social and legal segregation. In admitting colored blood but avoiding identification as black, the Jones family raised serious challenges to the meaning of race — social, cultural and biological.
Alice’s admission of colored blood did not solve the ambiguity of her racial identity. In a state that had never made interracial marriages illegal, the primary issue turned on whether Leonard had known she wasn’t white when he married her. The question became not was she black or white, but how could he and other white Americans know? Thus, the case continued to expose many of the nation’s contradictory definitions of race.
Throughout the trial, reporters carefully scrutinized Alice’s deportment, clothing and appearance. They searched for any detail that might explain who she was and give a fuller hint of her race. They also looked to see if she betrayed any lingering affection for Leonard. The reporters characterized her as “fair” or “slightly tanned” or “dusky” or even “ebony,” her skin tone waxing and waning with the tides of evidence and scandal. At perhaps the most memorable point of the trial, Alice, at the request of her lawyer, partially disrobed before the court, baring her breasts, back, and legs. Although no reporters were actually in the judge’s chambers when she exposed her body, all were sure she had proven her attorney’s point: that Leonard must have known from viewing her body prior to marriage that she was not white.
While she gave a few interviews to the press, Alice never actually testified, never told her story for the court record. She won her case, however. The annulment was denied, and the marriage was upheld. Editors generally agreed that the weight of evidence had been on her side, although some were surprised that Leonard’s race and class standing didn’t sway the jury. After another round of appeals Leonard disappeared, amidst continued speculation that the two had reunited. In 1930 Leonard resurfaced alone in Nevada, where he won a divorce that was recognized only in that state; they later signed a separation agreement in New York.
According to the terms, Leonard paid Alice a $32,500 lump sum and $3,600 per year for life. In return, Alice forfeited all claims to the Rhinelander estate and agreed not to use the Rhinelander name, nor to lecture or write publicly about her story, pledges she honored the rest of her life. Her parents and Leonard all died during the 1930s, events that recalled the trial for local and New York City newspapers.
So did a series of trials between Alice and the Rhinelander heirs over her annuity, which Alice again won. By the time she died, the print media and their readers had forgotten the case and her past notoriety. No one noticed that upon dying, and without speaking, she would get the last word. Her gravestone reads “Alice J. Rhinelander” — a reclamation of her identity as Leonard’s wife.
When we started our book, Love on Trial, we knew that the issues of racial identity raised by this case would resonate with contemporary readers. We had noted the rise of popular and political interest in the role and identity of children of mixed-race marriages in the post-Loving v. Virginia generation. The Rhinelander/Jones story offered an opportunity to bring the historical context of such contemporary concerns to a nonacademic audience.
However, in a trial laced with moments of high drama, if not melodrama, we did not want to replicate a series of caricatures — innocent Alice, vamping Alice, Leonard the dupe, Leonard the seducer. In a trial in which the vaudeville star Al Jolson testified, women were cleared from the courtroom because of the explicit nature of two of Leonard’s letters to Alice, and Alice partially disrobed before the jury, it could become easy to lose Alice and Leonard. We needed to communicate their depth and humanity, to explain both their path to love and their path to public spectacle.
Among colleagues, our joint research project leading to Love on Trial prompted almost as much interest as the story itself; collaborative authorship in history unfortunately is still uncommon. We had agreed to be equals in the process, to be free to challenge each other, edit passages, alter ideas, and settle on a joint sense of what the project meant. On the surface such a compact may appear straightforward, but for several of the years of our partnership, Earl served as Heidi’s dissertation chair, a reminder of a difference in status, experience and seniority. Despite these differences, however, we found that a shared commitment to the project made the collaboration work.
While Alice got the last word in her own story, we do not expect to do so with our book. Even now, a previously abandoned research path has reopened. This latest twist came just a few months ago, long after we had turned in the manuscript. We heard from the literary scholar Werner Sollors that one of his former students, Jamie L. Wacks, had obtained a copy of the trial transcript from the New York Bar Association. In March, after an initial report that it did not exist there either, we received a copy of the transcript.
Did finding it change anything? Yes and no. We now have the full texts of Leonard’s two letters that no newspaper was willing to print in full due to their explicit sexual nature. We can also answer a few other questions of detail, which we plan to do on a website. So far we have found nothing that would alter either our narrative or our overall analysis of the Rhinelander/Jones case. In fact, we are convinced that the route we took, while more difficult, made for a richer story.
And what about the other paths we could not follow? Will publication of this book prompt Alice’s heirs or other Rhinelander family members to tell their story? That would be a fascinating development, indeed. What might we learn about Alice and Leonard’s relationship? The Jones family’s thoughts about race and their own identity?
Alice’s family must have played a role in placing her married name on her gravestone. Perhaps Alice would get the last word once again.
For more information on Alice Beatrice Jones, check out Love On Trial: An American Scandal in Black and White by Earl Lewis and Heidi Ardizzone.