After Leonard Rhinelander and Alice Jones wed in New Rochelle on October 14, 1924, the couple rented an apartment in Westchester and continued shopping for furniture for their new home. The newlyweds must have had plenty of money to buy things. Only a few months before their marriage, the New York Times published a short notice that Leonard had inherited securities, cash, jewelry, stocks, and a mortgage company from his grandfather!

Even before Leonard married Alice, he had placed a deposit on bedroom furniture with a local furniture store. While they set up their new abode, Leonard lived at his family home in Manhattan during the week and joined his new wife on the weekends at her parent’s home.

I’ll Say She Is!

During the first few weeks after their wedding, the newlyweds socialized with a couple from Mount Vernon in Westchester, Joseph and Miriam Rich. Mr. Rich was the salesman who sold Leonard and Alice the furniture for their new apartment. Mr. and Mrs. Rich hosted the Rhinelanders for dinner and on another date the foursome traveled into Manhattan to eat dinner and catch the Marx Brothers show “I’ll Say She Is” on Broadway.

Rhinelander Bride Stuns 400

While the Rhinelanders settled into their newly decorated apartment, Barbara Reynolds, a local reporter for the New Rochelle Standard Star learned about their marriage. Likely the reporter checked local marriage, birth, and death notices hoping to find a scoop. While doing so, Reynolds may have seen Leonard and Alice’s wedding license and recognized Leonard’s last name.

No matter how Barbara Reynolds found out about the Rhinelander wedding, the Standard Star’s Thursday, November 13 issue published the first announcement of the Rhinelander wedding–Leonard Rhinelander, scion of a rich New York family, had married the daughter of a Westchester “colored man.”

Within hours of the discovery of Leonard and Alice’s marriage by the local press, New York City’s nearby tabloid, the New York Daily News picked up on the story and rushed into print that same evening on the front page of its next day dated “pink” edition the headline, “Rhinelander Bride Stuns 400.” In the page 3 story, the News‘s reporter breathlessly reported that the discovery of Leonard and Alice’s marriage was “a bombshell tossed into the aristocratic ranks of blue-blooded New York and Newport society yesterday.”

Readers who read further learned that this bombshell consisted of the news that “young Leonard Kip Rhinelander was secretly married on Oct. 14 to Miss Alice Beatrice Jones, daughter of a West Indian.”

His Colored Bride?

By the following day, Friday, November 14, the story of the Rhinelander wedding hit the pages of the New York Times. Over the course of the 14th, the Daily News churned out multiple editions of its paper updating the story of the Rhinelanders. By mid-day on Friday, the Daily News triumphantly published a full page photograph of the new Mrs. Rhinelander under an all caps heading, “HIS COLORED BRIDE.”

That same day the story of the Rhinelander wedding went viral–1920s-style. In Washington, D.C., the front page of the Washington Times published a story suggesting that Leonard Rhinelander’s family was growing concerned. “Wealthy Rhinelanders Meet to Bewail Wedding of Scion to Taxi-Driver’s Girl.” In a related story datelined the same day from New Rochelle another story claimed “Rich Heir’s Bride Sobs As She Is Questioned About Her Ancestry.”

According to this story, Alice Rhinelander told a reporter, “‘I can’t help it that dad is dark,’ she sobbed. ‘And he can’t help it. There is no reason for any one to say he is colored just on that account. Of course we haven’t colored blood.’”

Who was right? The Daily News with its headline “HIS COLORED BRIDE” or the report in the Washington Times? And, even more importantly why did it matter?

Curious about what happens next? Watch out for the next installment. Can’t wait? Then you’ll want to read my previously published book on Alice and Leonard Rhinelander, Property Rites: The Rhinelander Trial, Passing, and the Protection of Whiteness (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009). https://uncpress.org/book/9780807859391/property-rites/