The institutionalized attacks on homosexuals in the 1950s led directly to the creation of ONE magazine. The mission of The ONE Exhibition is to inform the public about a dark era in American history, marked by intense government sponsored anti-gay persecution, that motivated the creation of the nation's first gay magazine. The story begins during World War II, explores the lives of gay people during the McCarthy era, and ends in 1958 with the first gay Supreme Court case in U.S. history.

The website is divided into sections that correspond to chapters in the accompanying narrative, which can be found in its complete form under the thesis button in the top right hand corner of the page. You may navigate through the exhibition by clicking on the chapter titles along the tool bar above. Thank you for visiting, and please feel free to contact Josh with any questions or concerns through the Contact Info button.

The exhibition explores how, in response to government purges of gay men and lesbians, widespread witch-hunts, and police brutality and entrapment, the founders of ONE magazine established the first ongoing legitimate forum for gay men and lesbians in 1952. Further, the exhibition illustrates how certain forces in the U.S. government colluded in a nefarious agenda designed to intensify paranoia in the public for political gain. Their goal was to empower themselves through the scapegoating and suppression of homosexuals during an epoch of fear and insecurity as the nation reacted to the threat of communism in the 1950s.

As such, the specter of America’s enemies attacking from within was broadcast to an increasingly paranoid public through propaganda by the federal government and its agencies; described as “nests” of “morally weak” and traitorous homosexuals, plotting with Soviet communists to weaken American hegemony, and none were safe from suspicion. The ensuing attack against the country’s “hidden enemy,” manifested in a nationwide witch-hunt against gay men and lesbians that was devastating to a generation of gay people.

Ultimately, the editors of ONE magazine challenged the government’s perceived right to engage in and encourage these hateful and discriminatory practices when the Los Angeles postmaster general banned the magazine in 1954. They fought against rampant corruption and the often-venomous disgust of authorities all the way to the Supreme Court, and won. ONE, Incorporated v. Olesen was the first case heard by the highest court in the nation that featured the taboo subject of homosexuality, and it secured the 1st Amendment right of freedom of speech for the gay press.

Thus, ONE magazine and its founders were part of a small group of courageous early activists who stood up against all odds and established the foundations of the today's LGBT Equality Movement.