Pre-Gay L.A.: A Social History of the Movement for Homosexual Rights
C. Todd White
U. of Illinois Press. 258 pages, $25.
IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS of Sunday, April 18, 1965, Donald Slater and four other men cleared out the Venice Boulevard office of ONE, Inc., taking everything—furniture, typewriters, records—to a rented warehouse space on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood. This task accomplished, Slater went home to feed his cats and take a shower. He then returned to the empty Venice Boulevard office and sat on an overlooked chair in the middle of the room awaiting the arrival of Dorr Legg, which Slater knew would come early as Legg was preparing for a meeting in which he planned to oust Slater from the organization. Back in 1952 Slater and Legg had been among the seven founders of ONE, Inc., and they had worked together for thirteen years to make this pioneering homophile organization thrive. Now they faced each other in an angry battle over control.
Pre-Gay L.A., Todd White’s new book about this struggle and what led up to it, began as a dissertation in which White, an anthropologist, set out to record the vanishing culture of what he calls “pre-gay” Los Angeles, in some cases by interviewing the elderly survivors of those years. The story begins with the founding of the Mattachine Society by Harry Hay, Rudi Gernreich, and others in 1950. The purpose of Mattachine was to enable homosexuals to find each other and to form a brotherhood. They did this through clandestine meetings in private homes. Ironically, one of Mattachine’s greatest accomplishments exposed its limitation. In 1952 Hay convinced a member, Dale Jennings, to fight an entrapment charge in court. This meant publicly admitting his homosexuality. A hung jury prompted the judge to dismiss the charge, and Jennings was freed. The trial enabled Mattachine to attract more members, especially in California, but it also made homosexuals question the need for secrecy in their lives. Within a year, Mattachine was split in two by disputes between activists and assimilationists and ceased to be a strong force in Los Angeles—but not before the idea for another organization came up at a meeting attended by Dorr Legg.
The discussion on that October evening in 1952 was about the need for a publication for homosexuals. To this end, ONE, Inc., was founded in November, and by January 1953 the first issue of ONE Magazine appeared. The name came from an essay by Thomas Carlyle on the works of Goethe: “Of a truth, men are mystically united: a mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one.” In the years ahead, ONE, Inc., would dedicate itself to social service, educational programs, and publishing the magazine. Dorr Legg assumed responsibility for the first two missions; Donald Slater was the force behind the third.
White notes that, over time, two factions appeared within ONE, Inc. The first, calling themselves “homosexuals,” wanted to fight for civil rights, while the second, calling themselves “homophiles,” wanted to create institutions dedicated to the study and advancement of what they viewed as their distinct subculture. Slater was a member of the first faction, Legg the second. The ultimate split came about after endless wrangling over more mundane matters, like finances, elections, and how meetings were run. And personalities: White describes Legg as formal and authoritarian, given to bombast when speaking, while Slater was easygoing, respectful, and rational in discussions. Clearly, White prefers the personable Slater to the imperious Legg.
After the heist, the matter ended up in court for the next two years. When it was resolved in 1967, some of the disputed property changed hands and two separate organizations emerged, ONE, Inc., and Tangents. By this time, the gay liberation movement was visible on the horizon. As the older organizations receded in prominence, what became important was their archives: hundreds of boxes full of books, magazines, correspondence, and records documenting the early years of the homosexual movement in L.A. Despite efforts to house this material in a single place, half ended up at the University of Southern California and the other half at California State University–Northridge.
Because the magazine helped homosexuals come to terms with their sexuality throughout the country, and because we have the tangible evidence of each issue, the story of ONE Magazine is the most compelling part of this book. In the early 1950’s the magazine’s distribution grew from 500 to 6,000 copies a month. More than 90 percent of sales were single copies, sold mostly in bars, rather than subscriptions. By the end of the decade, ONE was available at newsstands in every state. How hard its producers worked at writing, printing, and distribution—while supporting themselves at other jobs! Much of their material was published under pseudonyms, not out of fear but because they wanted the magazine to appear to have more authors than it actually did.
White’s diligent research reveals that, in addition to publishing a magazine, ONE, Inc. also held an annual institute for 25 years in which volunteer faculty taught courses, sometimes to only three or four students, that were the precursors of queer studies. In 1956, the group founded the first homosexual library in the U.S. White concludes his book movingly with descriptions of the final years of several of these pioneers, the majority of whom had been in long-term relationships that undoubtedly contributed significantly to their success as activists.
Pre-Gay L.A. occasionally bogs down in details and betrays its origin as a dissertation, for example, when the author endeavors to explain ordinary human behavior with references to anthropological studies. Still, this book reminds us how much we owe to the men and women who, more than half a century ago, bravely stood up against prejudice, how hard they worked, how human they were, and in the end how admirable. Todd White has written a carefully documented account of people and organizations engaged in a struggle for gay rights many years before Stonewall.
Daniel Burr is an assistant dean at the Univ. of Cincinnati College of Medicine, where he also teaches courses on literature and medicine.
