ONE, Inc.

Cover of One magazine, April-May 1956

ONE, Inc. was an early gay rights organization in the United States.

The idea for a publication dedicated to homosexuals emerged from a Mattachine Society discussion meeting held on October 15, 1952.

ONE Inc.’s Articles of Incorporation were signed on Nov. 15, 1952 and were signed by “Tony Sanchez” (a pseudonym), Martin Block, and Dale Jennings. Other founders were Merton Bird, W. Dorr Legg, Don Slater, and Chuck Rowland. Jennings and Rowland were also Mattachine Society founders.

In January 1953 ONE, Inc. began publishing ONE Magazine, the first U.S. pro-gay publication, and sold it openly on the streets of Los Angeles. In October 1954 the U.S. Post Office Department declared the magazine 'obscene'. ONE sued, and finally won in 1958, as part of the landmark First Amendment case, Roth v. United States.^[1] The magazine continued until 1967.^{[citation needed]}

ONE also published ONE Institute Quarterly (now the Journal of Homosexuality). It began to run symposia, and contributed greatly to scholarship on the subject of same-sex love (then called 'homophile studies').

ONE readily admitted women, and Joan Corbin (as Eve Elloree), Irma Wolf (as Ann Carrl Reid), Stella Rush (as Sten Russell), Helen Sandoz (as Helen Sanders), and Betty Perdue (as Geraldine Jackson) were vital to its early success. ONE and Mattachine in turn provided vital help to the Daughters of Bilitis in the launching of their newsletter The Ladder in 1956. The Daughters of Bilitis was the counterpart lesbian organization to the Mattachine Society, and the organizations worked together on some campaigns and ran lecture-series. Bilitis came under attack in the early 1970s for 'siding' with Mattachine and ONE, rather than with the new separatist feminists.^{[citation needed]}

In 1965, ONE separated over irreconcilable differences between ONE’s business manager Dorr Legg and ONE Magazine editor Don Slater. After a two-year court battle, Dorr Legg’s faction retained the name “ONE, Inc.” and Don Slater’s faction retained most of the corporate library and archives. In 1968, Slater’s faction became the Homosexual Information Center or HIC, a non-profit corporation that survives today.

In 1996, ONE, Inc. merged with ISHR, the Institute for the Study of Human Resources, a non-profit organization created by transgendered philanthropist Reed Erickson, with ISHR being the surviving organization and ONE being the merging corporation. In 2005, the HIC donated many of its historic materials, including most of ONE Incorporated’s Blanche M. Baker Memorial Library, to the Vern and Bonnie Bullough Collection on Sex and Gender^{[dead link]}, a special collection within Oviatt Library at California State University, Northridge. In October 2010, ONE transferred its archives to the University of Southern California for preservation. ONE, Inc. will continue to exist to organize exhibits and gather new material.^[2]

See also

LGBT portal

• ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives
• LGBT rights in the United States
• List of LGBT rights organizations
• Timeline of LGBT history

Notes

1. ^ One, Inc. v. Olesen, 335 U.S. 371 (1958), reversing the Ninth Circuit's conviction per curiam and citing Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476. See full-text of opinion.
2. ^ http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/10/gay-archive-said-to-be-nations-largest-to-be-given-to-usc.html

Further reading

• Bullough, Vern L. Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. Harrington Park Press, 2002.
• Cain, Paul D. Leading the Parade: Conversations with America’s Most Influential Lesbian and Gay Men. New York, Scarecrow Press, 2002.
• Dynes, Wayne R. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Homosexuality.^{[dead link]} New York and London, Garland Publishing, 1990
• Gallo, Marcia. Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement. New York, Carroll and Graf, 2006.
• Johansson, Warren & Percy, William A. Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence.^{[dead link]} Harrington Park Press, 1994.
• Kepner, James. Rough News, Daring Views: 1950’s Pioneer Gay Press Journalism. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press, 1998.
• Legg, W. Dorr. Homophile Studies in Theory and Practice. San Francisco: ONE Institute Press and GLB Publishers, 1999.
• Murdoch, Joyce and Deb Price. Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians v. the Supreme Court. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
• White, C. Todd. Pre-Gay L.A.: A Social History of the Movement for Homosexual Rights. Champagne: University of Illinois Press, 2009.