Cruising the Archive: Queer Worldmaking

Queer Worldmaking is part of Cruising the Archive: Queer Art and Culture in Los Angeles, a multi-venue exhibition of items from the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives. Held in conjunction with the regional art festival “Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980,” Queer Worldmaking presents a range of materials, including photographs, documents, scrapbooks, recordings, films, and costumes related to queer activism and culture in Los Angeles from the 1940s to the 1980s. The items on display chart the birth of what was at the time called “homophile” activism, the production of the nation’s first LGBT (Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transsexual) publications, and the rise of gay liberation and lesbian feminism.

Incorporated in 1952, the ONE Archives collects, preserves, documents, and communicates the history of LGBT history. ONE’s research collection— the largest of its kind in the United States—became a permanent part of the USC Libraries in fall 2010.