Kip Rhinelander
| Kip Rhinelander | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 9, 1903 Pelham, New York, U.S. |
| Died | February 20, 1936 (aged 32) Long Beach, New York, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Lobar pneumonia |
| Resting place | Woodlawn Cemetery |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Socialite |
| Known for | Rhinelander v. Rhinelander |
| Spouse(s) | Alice Jones (m. 1924; div. 1929) |
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.
Leonard "Kip" Rhinelander was born in 1903 Pelham, New York to Adelaide Brady (née Kip) and Philip Jacob Rhinelander. Called Kip, he was the youngest of five children, including four sons and one daughter. The couple's eldest child, Issac Leonard Kip Rhinelander, died in infancy. The mother Adelaide Rhinelander 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. Kip Rhinelander had problems with stuttering and was portrayed as relatively slow in school.
The immigrant ancestor of the Rhinelander family in America was Philip Jacob Rhinelander, a German-born French Huguenot who immigrated to the United States 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.
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