History of ONE, Incorporated

The following history of ONE, Incorporated was created by C. Todd White as a part of his doctoral dissertation in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. It was first published in 2004 as part of the website for the [Homosexual Information Center].

This timeline links to several primary documents, such as court documents, corporate minutes and records, and letters of resignation and corrospondence of several of the pioneers of the early movement for homosexual rights in the United States.

White’s book Pre-Gay L.A.: A Social History for the Movement for Homosexual Rights will be published by the University of Illinois Press in Spring, 2009, and it will discuss many of the documents linked to this part of OutHistory.org.

Significant Events in the History of ONE, Incorporated

1947

• June: “Lisa Ben” (an anagram for Lesbian) publishes Vice Versa: America’s Gayest Magazine, the first regularly published newsletter in the United States dedicated to homosexual issues. The newsletter was typewritten at her employer’s, RKO Studios in Los Angeles. Ben distributed 16 copies to friends such as Jim Kepner.

1948

• Alfred Kinsey et al.’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male is published, asserting that one in three American males had experienced some form of homosexual experience in their lifetime and that between four and eight per-cent were exclusively homosexual.
• February: final (ninth) issue of Vice Versa distributed.
• August: Harry Hay attends a beer bust near the University of Southern California campus, where the idea is sprung to start a political organization called “Bachelors for Wallace.” Upon returning home that night, Hay began his first draft of a prospectus to form an organization dedicated to the welfare of homosexuals.

1949

• Publication of NIal Kent’s The Divided Path.

1950

• Physique Pictorial magazine is first published, by Bob Mizer.
• (Future activist) Betty Berzon moves to Los Angeles.
• James Barr’s Quatrefoil published by Greenberg.
• President Eisenhower signs Executive Order 10450, citing “sexual perversions” as reasons for preventing homosexuals from being employed by the federal government.
• Nov 11: Harry Hay, Rudy Gernreich, Chuck Rowland, Dale Jennings, and Bob Hull meet at Harry Hay’s home in Silver Lake to discuss his Preliminary Concepts for unifying homosexuals into social action. The group meet again two days later, on Nov. 13th.
• Dec: A senate subcommittee issues a report stating that homosexuals working within the Federal government could be considered a threat to national security.
• Dec. 11: First organized discussion group of Hay’s secret society, which would later become known as Mattachine.

1951

• Jim Kepner moves to 2141 Baxter Street in Echo Park, where he is to reside for the next 21 years.
• Donald Webster Cory’s The Homosexual in America—A Subjective Approach is published by Greenberg.
• Fritz Peters’s novel Finistère is published by Farrar, Straus & Company.
• April: Lovers Konrad Stevens and James Gruber (christened collectively as “Stim” by Dale Jennings) join Harry Hay’s “Society of Fools.” The organization decides to call itself “Mattachine.” First Missions and Purposes of the Mattachine Society are written.
• June: Dorr Legg (known as Bill Lambert), Merton Bird, and others found Knights of the Clocks, an organization of interracial homosexuals.
• July 20: Missions and Purposes of the Mattachine Society are ratified.

1952

• Spring: Dale Jennings is arrested in his home for lewd conduct. Harry Hay and other Mattachine members creat the Citizens Committee to Outlaw Entrapment to raise funds for Jennings’s legal defence and to publicized the case.
• June 23: The trial of Dale Jennings begins and lasts for 10 days.
• Oct. 15 [We]: Mattachine Discussion Group held in home of Bill Lambert. Idea proposed to publish a magazine or newsletter pertaining to homosexuality.
  • ONE Inc. would continually celebrate its anniversary on Oct. 15 to commemorate this meeting.
  • Future ONE director Fred Frisbie recruited to join Mattachine.
• Oct. 22 [We]: Second meeting to discuss the publication of a periodical devoted to homosexual issues.
• Oct. 29 [We]: Third meeting to discuss the publication of a newsletter or magazine pertaining to homosexuality, at the home of attorney Fred Snider.
• Nov. 5 [We]: Fourth discussion meeting in the formation of a homosexual magazine. Attendees discuss and eliminate over 20 possible names. The BRIDGE and WEDGE are retained as possible choices.
• Nov. 15 [Sa]: ONE, Incorporated’s Articles of Incorporation signed in the law office of Eric Julber.
• Nov. 29 [Sa]: Meeting of Incorporation held in Martin Block’s Studio Bookshop. Motion adopted that a board of three directors act as officers of the corporation, in accordance with California law. Martin Block is elected to be ONE’s first Chairman. Don Slater is elected Vice Chairman and Dale Jennings becomes Secretary/Treasurer.

1953

• UCLA psychologist Evelyn Hooker contacts the Mattachine Society in search of subjects for her study of differences between male homosexuals and heterosexuals.
• By year’s end, Mattachine-like discussion groups are being held throughout Los Angeles and in Long Beach, Laguna Beach, Fresno, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and Chicago.
• January: Premier Issue of ONE Magazine, edited by Martin Block, Dale Jennings, and ““Don Slater]], with William Lambert as Business Manager and Donald Webster Cory as Contributing Editor.
  • Jim Kepner attends his first Mattachine meeting by invitation of his friend Betty Perdue.
• February 7 [Sa]: ONE Incorporated’s Articles of Incorporation filed with the Secretary of State in Sacramento, CA, signed by Martin Block, Dale Jennings, and Antonio Sanchez, the First Directors of ONE, Inc.
• April: Mattachine Society conference to create a new constitution.
• Spring: Irma “Corky” Wolf, known in print as “Ann Carl Reid,” begins working for ONE Inc.
• May 27 [We]: ONE Incorporated’s Charter Granted by the State of California.
• June: Martin Block resigns as editor of ONE Magazine; Dale Jennings takes over.
• August: An issue of ONE Magazine dealing with homosexual marriage is confiscated by the Los Angeles Postmaster. Attorney Eric Julber later secures the release of the magazine.
• Sept: ONE Magazine is first distributed in New York City.
• October 16 [Fr]: BY-LAWS for ONE, Incorporated filed with the Secretary of State in Sacramento, California.
• Nov. 1 [Su]: First Official Board Meeting for ONE, Incorporated. Martin Block is elected Chair, Tony Sanchez Vice Chair, and Dale Jennings, Secretary-Treasurer.
  • The cover of the November issues of ONE reads “The Homosexual Magazine” for the first time.
• Nov. 14 [Sa]: Dale Jennings addresses the Mattachine Society Banquet for having received the 1953 Achievement Award, for his work on ONE Magazine

1954

• January 22 [Fr]: Annual Business Meeting. Board of Directors of ONE, Incorporated elect William Lambert as Chairman, Irma Wolf as vice-Chairman, and Dale Jennings as Secretary-Treasurer, each to serve a three-year term.
• Feb.: Dale Jennings resigns as editor of ONE. Irma Wolf is recruited to the editorial board.
• March 31 [We]: Don Slater becomes interim director of ONE, Inc. Jim Kepner, as “Lyn Pedersen,” publishes his first article in ONE Magazine, “The Importance of Being Different.”
• May: Jim Kepner, as “Lyn Pedersen,” becomes a member of the Editorial Staff for ONE Magazine, replacing Ben Tabor.
• July: Irma “Corky” Wolf, as “Ann Carll Reid,” becomes Managing Editor of ONE Magazine.
• October: Los Angeles Postmaster Otto K. Oleson refuses to deliver the October issue of ONE Magazine, calling the content “obscene.” Attorney Eric Julber agrees to help ONE engage Oleson in a lawsuit.

1955

• January: ONE’s Education Division, called ONE Institute for Homophile Studies, sponsors its first public meeting, a Midwinter Institute.
• Feb. 27 [Su]: Date of Jim Kepner’s (first) Letter of Resignation from ONE, Incorporated.

1956

• ONE Inc. begins its ONE Institute of Homophile Studies program. Lead by Jim Kepner, Merritt Thompson, and W. Dorr Legg, this is the first educational institution in the United States dedicated to the study of homosexuality.
• ONE Confidential launched and distributed to the Friends of ONE, in response to the onslaught of mail and increased public attention.
• ONE, Incorporated’s Publications Division publishes Homosexuals Today: A Handbook of Organizations & Publications, with William Lambert [Marvin Cutler], as Editor.
• Jim Kepner contributes over 400 books to ONE Incorporated’s library, more than doubling the size of the collection. Don Slater becomes ONE’s first librarian.
• Jan. 27–29: Second annual Midwinter Institute. Harry Hay is a featured speaker.
• March 1 [Th]: Chuck Rowland resigns from ONE’s Social Services Division.
  • Irma “Corky” Wolf, as “Ann Carll Reid,” is promoted to Editor of ONE Magazine.
  • U.S. District Judge Thurmond Clarke rules that the October 1954 issue of ONE Magazine had contained “filthy and obscene material obviously calculated to stimulate the lust of the homosexual reader” and was thus unmailable. ONE’s attorney Eric Julber appeals.

1957

• The Wolfenden Report is published, recommending that homosexuality be decriminalized in England.
• Harry Benjamin coins the word “transsexual.”
• A Navy committee investigating homosexuals in the military publishes The Crittenden Report, stating that there was no legitimate basis for excluding homosexuals from the armed forces.
• Federal government astronomer Frank Kameny is fired for being a homosexual.
• UCLA Psychologist Evelyn Hooker publishes a study prociaming that homosexual men are just as well adjusted as heterosexual men.
• Jan. 25–27: Third annual Midwinter Institute. Theme: The Homosexual Answers His Critics. Harry Hay presents a paper titled “The Homophile in Search of an Historical Context and Cultural Continuity.”
• Dale Jennings, as Jeff Winters, again appears in ONE Magazine, as author of the short story “The Little Guy.”
• March: California’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Barnes, Hamley, and Ross uphold Judge Clarke’s ruling from a year prior that the October 1954 issue of ONE was obsence and thus unmailable. Julber decides to appeal.
• June 13 [Th]: Eric Julber files a nine-page petiton with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of ONE, Incorporated.
• June 24 [Mon]: Supreme Court rules in Roth vs. United States that “obscinity” is not protected by the First Ammendment and that “The standard for judging obscinity...is whether, to the aveage person...the dominant theme of the material, taken as a whole, appeals to purient interests.”
• Summer: “The Homosexual Viewpoint” first printed on the cover of ONE Magazine.

Oct. 17 [Th]: Irma “Corky” Wolf resigns as Editor of ONE due to health issues and continued conficts with Dorr Legg [William Lambert].

1958

Barbara Gittings founds a Daughters of Bilitis chapter in New York.

• Jan. 13 [Mo]: The United States Supreme Court rules that the October 1954 issue of ONE Magazine was not obscene and should be protected as an excercise of free speech. The court battle between ONE Inc. and Los Angeles Postmaster Otto Oleson is over.
• Jan. 31 [Fr]: Annual Business Meeting. Don Slater elected a Director to fill the unexpired two-year term of Ann Carll Reid.
• Jan. 31–Feb. 2: 4th annual Midwinter Institute. Theme: Homosexuality: A Way of Life.
• June 6th [Fr]: ONE Institute Quarterly for Homophile Studies first published, by W. Dorr Legg, Merritt M. Thompson, and Jim Kepner.

1959

• Jan. 29–31: 5th annual Midwinter Institute. Theme: Mental Health and Homosexuality.
• Sept. 4–7: 6th annual Mattachine Convention in Denver. Billy Glover attends and decides to work for the movement.

Late December: Jim Schneider contacts Don Slater at ONE’s offices and becomes an active volunteer for the organization.

1960

• Jan. 29–31: ONE’s 6th annual Midwinter Institute. Theme: The Homosexual in the Community.
• Feb. 2: [Mo]: Board of Directors Meeting. Jim Kepner is elected Chairman, Don Slater Vice Chaiman, and William Lambert Secretary-Treasurer.
• Nov. 1 [Tu]: Jim Kepner’s letter explaining his resignation to the Members of ONE, Inc.

Nov. 15 [Sa]: Date of Jim Kepner’s second letter of resignation from ONE, Incorporated, and from the editorial board of ONE Magazine.

1961

• Wayne Placke introduces Joseph Hansen to Don Slater, to see if Slater would publish one of Hansen’s poems or short stories.
• San Francisco drag artist Jose Sarria becomes the first openly gay person to run for political office in the nation.
• Jan. 28–29: 7th Annual Midwinter Institute and “Bill of Rights” fiasco.

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