Love Letters as Evidence in Court: The Case of Rhinelander Versus Rhinelander
Love Letters as Evidence in Court: The Case of Rhinelander Versus Rhinelander

Summary/Abstract: The case of Rhinelander Versus Rhinelander was widely publicized in the early twentieth century. The defendant Alice Rhinelander hardly suspected that her letters would be read by anyone but their addressee, let alone get examined in court. The plaintiff side tried to prove that Alice had purposefully made steps to get Leonard Kip Rhinelander to marry her, including quoting many of her hundreds of letters to him. Under the plaintiff’s interpretation, her words seemed to reveal her as scheming, lustful, threatening, cajoling, and ambitious. With the case making headlines and attracting national attention, Alice’s love letters were subject to scrutiny and interpretation. The plaintiff’s lawyer carefully constructed the case around the prevalent stereotypes of the time, playing upon certain deeply-ingrained notions related to race and gender roles. The attempt was to track Alice’s plot to ensnare her husband through her letters and create an image of her that would easily be accepted by the public (and an all-white, all-male jury), based on their expecta¬tions with respect to a woman of color. Even though her exposed letters provided ample evidence for Leonard’s lawyer to use against her, her own counselor gave just as good a retaliation, expos-ing Leonard as a coward for permitting the letters to get into his lawyer’s hands.

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