ONE INSTITUTE

Since its founding in 1955, the ONE Institute of Los Angeles has been a cornerstone institution for gay research. In 1956 the Institute offered the first college-level course on homosexuality from a gay-affirmative perspective on the premise that gay men and lesbians familiar with their group history, sociology, and anthropology could more effectively fight for their civil rights. Under the banner "homophile studies," the Institute's interdisciplinary curriculum challenged deeply embedded academic biases against homosexuality, laying the groundwork for present-day gay studies in universities across the country. In addition to its innovative classes, the Institute's library, subject files, and archival collections have offered a research base for a wide range of foundational gay research. Still in operation at the start of the twenty-first century, the ONE Institute remains the oldest and most enduring gay organization in the United States.

Founding

The ONE Institute was a staple institution of the Los Angeles–based homophile movement of the 1950s. It spun off from the Mattachine Foundation (later the Mattachine Society) when, in 1952, members of a Mattachine discussion group became frustrated with the Mattachine's "secret society" approach to mobilizing the gay minority. In an effort to boost the visibility and image of gay men and lesbians, these members abandoned Mattachine to found the nation's first openly homosexual national publication, whose first issue appeared in January 1953. Daring to print "The Homosexual Magazine" on the cover at the peak of the repressive McCarthy era, ONE magazine became the key voice of the homophile movement until its demise in 1967.

From ONE magazine's inception, however, several founders had more ambitious plans for the organization (operating under the name ONE, Inc.). The abysmal quality of published information about homosexuality during the 1950s compelled the group to consider education, research, and publishing high priorities. (Educational goals also allowed the magazine to operate under tax-exempt status.) During 1953 and 1954 the ordeal of writing, editing, assembling, and distributing the nation's first gay monthly kept the staff members busy, but once the magazine's operations ran smoothly, they conceived the ONE Institute in 1955 to handle the group's research and education goals.

The activists behind the ONE Institute sought to position themselves as official experts on homosexuality, wrestling the distinction away from psychiatrists, police chiefs, politicians, and other ill-informed, so-called experts widely quoted in the popular press. The psychiatrist Edmund Bergler, for example, often quoted in Time magazine and the New York Times as the nation's foremost expert on homosexuality, regularly horrified gay men and lesbians by insisting that homosexuality was a curable disease caused by "psychic masochism." The ONE Institute offered an official "homosexual viewpoint" to challenge such theories, supported by research produced from its libraries and classes. ONE's experts appeared in magazine articles and panel discussions criticizing prejudicial social attitudes throughout the 1950s and 1960s. ONE fell short of its ambition to become as respected as the Kinsey Institute, but the erudite, academic tone of ONE's representatives impressed both homosexual and heterosexual audiences. More importantly, the knowledge generated at the ONE Institute offered an intellectual foundation for the gay movement and gay consciousness.

Central Figures

The key figure behind the ONE Institute was W. Dorr Legg. In 1953 he became the business manager for ONE magazine under the fictitious name William Lambert; he also wrote articles for the magazine under several pseudonyms. Previously a landscape architect and college professor, Legg immersed himself in gay activism upon moving to Los Angeles in 1952, and in 1956 the ONE Institute became his life's work. Over the years, Legg's foridable intellect had mastered most college disciplines, reflected in hundreds of lectures on homosexual issues spanning the academic spectrum. In addition to teaching dozens of courses, Legg also handled most of the Institute's administrative work until his death in 1994.

Another important figure was Merritt Thompson, a retired University of Southern California School of Education professor with over fifty years of experience in education. Thompson assisted Dorr Legg in conceiving and structuring an interdisciplinary curriculum for the systematic study of homosexuality, which they called "homophile studies." Under the pseudonym Thomas Merritt, Thompson served as the Institute's first dean and taught several courses until ending his association with ONE in 1963.

In 1964 millionaire philanthropist and female-to-male transsexual Reed Erickson befriended Dorr Legg and, under the moniker of the Institute for the Study of Human Resources, funded the majority of the ONE Institute's activities for the next fifteen years. In 1981, upon the accreditation of ONE's graduate school, Erickson promised a new campus in a sprawling Los Angeles mansion, but unexpectedly rescinded his offer shortly after signing the papers, triggering a ten-year estate dispute that drained the ONE Institute of its resources, nearly destroying the organization.

Activities

ONE's classes were usually held in its cramped offices, limiting attendance until a move to more spacious quarters in 1961 gave the organization breathing space to expand its classes and curriculum. Any adult could enroll in a class regardless of college experience. Enrollment ranged from two or three people in its seminars to thirty in its more popular classes. While most classes were taught in Los Angeles, ONE conducted extension classes in San Francisco, Denver, Detroit, and other large cities. ONE had no formal degree-granting powers until the establishment of its graduate school in 1981, whereby the state of California sanctioned the Institute to give master's degrees and Ph.D.s in homophile studies. Access to ONE's library and files enabled students to produce a substantial body of research over the years, while ONE's monthly public lectures drew crowds into the hundreds. Guest speakers included the activists Del Martin of the Daughters of Bilitis and Hal Call of the Mattachine Society; the psychologists Albert Ellis and Evelyn Hooker; the writers Christopher Isherwood, Ann Bannon, and Donald Webster Cory; and religious, legal, and other experts.

In most years the ONE Institute held a Midwinter Institute in January, consisting of speeches, lectures, research reports, and special events spread out over several days. Attendance ranged from 150 to 500 participants and observers. Themes of early Midwinter Meetings included "The Homosexual Answers His Critics" (1958), "Mental Health and Homosexuality" (1960), "The Homosexual in the Community" (1960), and "New Frontiers in the Law" (1963). Aside from intellectual purposes, the meetings offered opportunities for homophile activists to meet, strategize, and argue with each other. An attempt to construct a homosexual Bill of Rights during the 1961 Midwinter Institute, for example, rocked the homophile world when the Daughters of Bilitis rejected the idea as extremist and unnecessary. The fallout of the disastrous meeting was felt for years, leading to increased tension in the movement between male and female homophile factions.

Beginning in 1958, the ONE Institute published a quarterly journal titled ONE Institute Quarterly: Homophile Studies, the first English-language academic-style journal devoted to homosexuality. Reflecting the Institute's interdisciplinary orientation, lesbian and gay scholars contributed a wide range of articles. Essay topics included homosexuality in Native American cultures, the homosexuality of the Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky, the legal rights of homosexuals, homosexuality in the Bible, and summaries of the latest scientific research. Although circulation never rose higher than a few hundred, the twenty-two issues of the irregularly published quarterly (the last issue was published in 1969) have influenced subsequent gay research.

Later Years

In 1965 an explosive dispute between Dorr Legg and the longtime ONE magazine editor Don Slater ripped the organization apart. Legg and Slater battled each other in court for the rights to the name "ONE"—Legg prevailed, though ONE magazine soon disappeared from newsstands. The split represented a deeper schism among gay activists in the 1960s as a younger generation incorporated tactics of the black power and anti–Vietnam War movements, to the chagrin of older homophile activists (such as Legg) who preferred a tone of assimilation and moderation. As new groups emerged by the hundreds during the late 1960s and early 1970s, ONE lost its vanguard position in the gay movement. However, despite the considerable strides in gay visibility, the study of homosexuality remained academically marginalized during these years, so ONE's classes continued to serve an important intellectual function for the gay community. Until the early 1990s, despite the severe financial strains caused by the Reed Erickson estate dispute, the Institute still offered homophile studies classes much as it had since the 1950s.

By the early 1990s, partly because of the ONE Institute's efforts over the decades, gay research earned greater mainstream academic acceptance. Legg passed away on 26 July 1994 at the age of eighty-nine, ending the Institute's program of homophile studies. Under the leadership of a new generation of activists, the ONE Institute dropped its classes, merged with Jim Kepner's International Gay and Lesbian Archives, and moved into an abandoned fraternity house owned by the University of Southern California. In May 2001 the revamped ONE Institute and Archives opened, offering its vast resources to yet another generation of gay scholars and activists.

Bibliography

Bullough, Vern, ed. Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002.

Cutler, Marvin [W. Dorr Legg], ed. Homosexuals Today: 1956. Los Angeles: ONE Inc., 1956.

D'Emilio, John. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

Gregory, Robert. "ONE Institute: 1955–1960, a Report." Homophile Studies 3 (1960): 214–220.

Kepner, Jim. Rough News—Daring Views: 1950s' Pioneer Gay Press Journalism. New York: Haworth Press, 1998.

Legg, W. Dorr. Homophile Studies in Theory and Practice. San Francisco: GLB Publishers and ONE Institute Press, 1994.

Craig M. Loftin

see alsodaughters of bilitis; erickson educational foundation; erickson, reed; homophile movement; legg, dorr; lgbtq studies; mattachine society; one.