Collection of letters written to the first openly gay magazine in the United States.
Long before the Stonewall riots, ONE magazine—the first openly gay magazine in the United States—offered a positive viewpoint of homosexuality and encouraged gay people to resist discrimination and persecution. Despite a limited monthly circulation of only a few thousand, the magazine influenced the substance, character, and tone of the early American gay rights movement. This book is a collection of letters written to the magazine, a small number of which were published in ONE, but most of them were not. The letters candidly explore issues such as police harassment of gay and lesbian communities, antigay job purges, and the philosophical, scientific, and religious meanings of homosexuality.
Craig M. Loftin is Lecturer in American Studies at California State University, Fullerton. He is the author of Masked Voices: Gay Men and Lesbians in Cold War America, also published by SUNY Press.
