ONE Magazine Poster (August 1958 Cover Poster/The Homosexual Viewpoint)

ONE Magazine — 1958 Vintage Gay History Poster

Before Stonewall. Before Pride. Before being openly gay was remotely safe, there was ONE Magazine.

First published in 1953, ONE was one of the earliest widely distributed magazines created specifically for gay men and lesbians in the United States. Produced by people connected with the ONE, Inc. organization in Los Angeles, it covered homosexuality, politics, literature, relationships, discrimination, and gay life at a time when simply putting those subjects into print was radical.

Buying a copy could itself be an act of courage. Homosexuality was criminalized across much of the country, gay people routinely lost jobs and housing if discovered, and the federal government was actively purging suspected homosexuals from its workforce during the Lavender Scare.

Even the U.S. Post Office tried to stop ONE. In 1954, postal authorities declared an issue obscene and refused to deliver it through the mail. ONE, Inc. fought back, taking the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

And in 1958, they won.

In One, Inc. v. Olesen, the Supreme Court reversed the lower-court decision, establishing that material discussing homosexuality wasn't automatically obscene simply because it was homosexual. It was a quiet but enormously important victory for gay publishing and free expression—more than a decade before Stonewall.

That makes a 1958 cover of ONE Magazine especially meaningful. It comes from the exact year this tiny gay publication successfully stood up to the federal government and won.