|
SCitizen Projects
Experiencing ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives
Facilitators: Dr., Walter Williams, Dr. Joseph Hawkins, Dr. Craig Loftin, and Ashlie Medfelt
Abstract:
This program will introduce students to the world's largest research library and archives devoted to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) concerns: the One Institute. Located at 909 W. Adams Blvd., just four blocks north of USC campus, ONE collects, preserves, documents, studies, and communicates the history of one of the most important civil rights movements of the century. Students will learn about the LGBT community in Los Angeles and the role of an archives. The service project will involve work relating to library and archival operation, analysis of books or files, and/or internet archival resources. This project will familiarize students with the way a major research library and archives works, thus helping students learn valuable library and research skills.
Learning Outcomes:
- Participants will gain an introduction to the diverse gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community of Los Angeles, one of the largest, if not the largest such community of any city in the world. Participants will learn that the worldwide LGBT movement for equality began
in Los Angeles in 1950, and ONE was central to that history.
- Participants will learn what an archives is, and how a library and archives works.
- Students will be exposed to various kinds of projects of their choice, learning how to archive documents, how to catalog or evaluate books, how to use sources to write a summary, and other archival tasks.
Community Organization Summary:
The modern ongoing civil rights movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in the United States began in Los Angeles in 1950. Two years later a group of LGBT activists decided to start ONE to promote objective publishing, research and education on the subject of homosexuality. Their first publication was ONE Magazine, which became the nation's leading gay periodical from 1953 to 1967. In 1958 the United States Supreme Court ruled that ONE Magazine had the right to send its issues through the mail, thus becoming the LGBT movement's first court victory and laying the legal basis for the development of the LGBT press. In 1956, USC professor, Merritt Thompson, joined Dorr Legg, Jim Kepner, and others to establish ONE Institute, which developed America's first academic journal in Gay Studies, and taught the first classes in Gay Studies. In the 1960’s and 1970’s Jim Kepner withdrew to build the National Gay Archives as a separate organization. In 1994, USC professor, Walter Williams, negotiated the merger of ONE Institute and the National Gay and Lesbian Archives, and brought it to USC. Today, ONE is the oldest ongoing LGBT organization in the Western Hemisphere. See www.onearchives.org.
Facilitator Biographies:
 |
Dr. Walter L. Williams is Professor of Anthropology, History, and Gender Studies at USC, and founding editor of the International Gay & Lesbian review (http://gaybookreviews.info). He has published ten books, including the Spirit and The Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture (Beacon Press), and Gay and Lesbian Rights in the United States: a Documentary History (Greenwood press) that was based largely on research at ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives. He is internationally recognized as a pioneer in the field of Gay Studies, and has received awards for his activism in advancing human rights around the world. He is former president of ONE Archives, and was central to this archives being brought to USC. Professor Williams is on sabbatical in 2006-2007, and will be continuing his fieldwork research in Thailand on the acceptance of gender diversity and sexual variance in Thai Buddhism. For more information see http://livefully.info.
|
 |
Joseph R. Hawkins Ph.D. has been the President of the Board of Directors of ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives for the past three years. Professor Hawkins teaches both in the Anthropology Department and in the Gender Studies Program. He has a chapter in a forthcoming volume about Japan called Queer Voices.
|
 |
Craig Loftin recently completed his Ph.D. in the history department at USC and has been hired as a 1-year visiting professor at USC for the 2006-07 school year. His dissertation examined letters written to the first gay magazine in the U.S. during the 1950’s. Loftin conducted his research at the ONE Archive, where he has also been a volunteer since 2000. Loftin has also served as the website manager for the Committee on Lesbian and Gay History (CLGH), a branch of the American Historical Association. In 2005, Loftin was awarded a prestigious national fellowship on sexuality research by the Social Science Research Council. An article adapted from his dissertation will be published in the Journal of Social History in 2007. In addition to teaching at USC, he will spend his next year revising his dissertation into a book manuscript. |
|
