For safety and longevity, ONE’s all-gender board of editors often used pen names, and always depended on other jobs for food and rent. The magazine was mailed internationally in unmarked brown envelopes. It’s a record of endurance, legal and emotional labor, new and inherited trauma, tenderness, and joy. The digital archive of ONE, the monthly magazine published by ONE, Inc., reflects the contradictions of the time. So much was hopeful, but at times everything felt broken and hopeless too. The following year Dwight Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10450, which said gays and lesbians were perverts, criminals, mentally ill, and must be blocked from any kind of federal employment. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz hosted the show from the Cocoanut Grove Lounge. for the first time (before that, the awards just went to L.A. That same year, a 7.2 earthquake shook Southern California along the White Wolf Fault, and the Emmys were awarded to shows made across the U.S.
groups like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, as well as Swiss magazine Der Kreis. It was founded in Los Angeles in 1952 with money and leadership from U.S. ONE, Inc., was one of the first gay rights organizations in the United States.
