Rhinelander v. Rhinelander was a divorce case between Kip Rhinelander and Alice Jones. Leonard "Kip" Rhinelander (May 9, 1903 – February 20, 1936) was an American socialite and a member of the socially prominent and wealthy New York City Rhinelander family. His marriage at the age of 21 to Alice Jones, a biracial woman who was a working-class daughter of English immigrants, made national headlines in 1924. Their 1925 divorce trial highlighted contemporary strains related to the instability of the upper class, as well as racial anxiety about "passing" at a time when New York was a destination for numerous blacks from the South in the Great Migration and immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. The trial also touched on the vague legal definition of the time as to who was to be considered "white" or "colored," alternately portraying race as biologically determined and knowable or as more fluid. Interracial marriages in New York State were legal, but rare. Rhinelander family Rhinelander was born in 1903 in Pelham, New York to Adelaide Brady (née Kip) and Philip Jacob Rhinelander. Nicknamed “Kip” (his mother's maiden name), Rhinelander was the youngest of five children, including four sons and one daughter. The couple's eldest child, Isaac Leonard Kip, died in infancy. Rhinelander's mother Adelaide died on September 11, 1915 after sustaining burns when an alcohol lamp on her dressing table exploded. The third son, T.J. Oakley Rhinelander, died in France in 1918 while serving in the 107th Regiment during World War I. The immigrant ancestor of the Rhinelander family in America was Philip Jacob Rhinelander, a German-born French Huguenot who immigrated to North America in 1686 to escape religious persecution following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He settled in the newly formed French Huguenot community of New Rochelle in 1686, where he amassed considerable property holdings, the basis for the family's wealth. The Rhinelanders are considered one of the nation's earliest shipbuilders. The family also had holdings in real estate and owned the Rhinelander Real Estate Company. By the late 19th century, many members of the family were active in philanthropic causes and were active in New York high society. Marriage In September 1921, Rhinelander began a romance with Alice Beatrice Jones (July 19, 1899/1900 – September 13, 1989), the daughter of a working-class family. The two met while Rhinelander was attending the Orchard School in Stamford, Connecticut, an inpatient clinic