1927

1927 gives Passing its immediate historical setting while bringing its characters’ lives into contact with a longer history of racial classification. In that year, Harlem’s social gatherings draw white spectators, and the Rhinelander case remains a consequential example of how courts and public opinion contested racial identity, marriage, and belonging.

The Novel’s Present

Irene Redfield identifies 1927 as the year in which the story’s New York social world unfolds. She explains that hundreds of white people like Hugh Wentworth attend events in Harlem, and that their presence is increasing. These visitors make Black social life an object of white curiosity: Irene says they come for the same reason Clare Kendry is there, to see Black people.

The growing attendance also carries a practical threat. Irene recalls that Brian Redfield predicted that Black people might soon be excluded from these gatherings or made to sit in segregated sections. His remark connects the dance floor to the wider possibility of Jim Crow laws and shows that white access to Harlem did not necessarily entail equal access for Black people elsewhere.

A Date Set Against Longer Histories

The year’s significance extends beyond the novel’s immediate scenes. The passing narrative is presented as a response to the aftermath of slavery, when racial categories became bound to legal status, freedom, and the material privileges associated with whiteness. Within that history, Plessy v. Ferguson helped entrench the color line and the doctrine of separate but equal, while the one-drop rule treated Black ancestry as decisive regardless of visible appearance.

These legal and social conventions made racial identity both consequential and unstable: a person could be treated as white on the basis of appearance while the law or public judgment assigned a different status. Passing exposes the contradiction. Its central figure can cross a boundary that society treats as fixed, thereby revealing how racial classifications depend not only on appearance but also on custom, power, and legal interpretation.

The Rhinelander Case in 1927

The novel’s reference to the Rhinelander case points to a recent and continuing legal controversy. Leonard Kip Rhinelander, a member of a wealthy New York family, married Alice B. Jones in October 1924. He sought an annulment the following month, claiming that she had misrepresented her racial identity. Jones countered that he had known her ancestry before the marriage and had pursued the relationship despite it.

The 1925 trial made racial identity a public and legal question. Newspapers sensationalized the proceedings, and the jury found Jones not guilty of fraud. Rhinelander’s unsuccessful attempts to appeal were costly. In 1927, Jones sued for separation, alleging abandonment and cruel and inhuman treatment connected to the publicity surrounding the trial. The separation suit places the case directly within the novel’s setting, rather than leaving it as distant historical background.

Consequences and Significance

The case continued beyond 1927. A divorce decree was granted in 1930, and Jones received a settlement of $31,500 and a quarterly annuity of $3,600 for life; Rhinelander had spent more than $50,000 in legal fees. These outcomes underscore the material stakes attached to racial classification and marriage, as well as the lasting personal consequences of a public dispute over identity.

Against this history, 1927 is not merely a calendar label. It locates Harlem’s dances and the novel’s passing plot in a society where racial boundaries were enforced through law, public scrutiny, and everyday expectations. The year also sharpens the contrast between the apparent mobility of passing and the institutions that sought to fix racial identity and regulate its consequences.