Out of many...: A social history of the homosexual rights movement as originated and continued in Los Angeles, California.

摘要

This dissertation explores the history of the modern American movement for homosexual rights, which originated in Los Angeles, California in the late 1940s and continues today. Part ethnography and part social history, it relates a detailed and accurate account of the history of this movement as manifest through the emergence of four related organizations: Mattachine, ONE Incorporated, the Homosexual Information Center (HIC), and the Institute for Human Resources (ISHR), which has been doing business as ONE, Incorporated since the two organizations merged in 1995. As such, it is a chronicle of how one clandestine special interest association emerged as a powerful political force that spawned several other organizations over a period of over fifty years.; It will be seen that history is fragile and subject to alteration, and in order to get the story right, the social scientist or historian must combine different research methods such as participant observation, extensive and repeated interviews with key informants, and thorough archival research to verify and validate facts as they are encountered. With this done, one can more readily perceive patterns of organizational growth and better discern the ultimate reasons for organizational fissions and fusions and the motivations and personalities of the key persons involved.; Through the course of creating and maintaining these organizations, the pioneers of the movement have become a virtual kindred, supporting each other as they have aged and providing the social and familial network that has eased the solitude and suffering of advancing age. Through the use of technology such as the Internet and the telephone, constraints to social networking from distant places have been greatly overcome, facilitating long-term social interactions for the aging homosexual populace and making it easier to manage corporate affairs and rapidly disseminate information.