The Ladder (magazine)

Published from 1956 to 1972 (bimonthly in 1971 and 1972), The Ladder was the primary monthly publication and method of communication for the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), the first lesbian organization in the US.

The name of the magazine was derived from the artwork on its first cover, simple line drawings showing figures moving towards a ladder that disappeared into the clouds.

It was created and edited by a secretary named Edith Eyde (using the pseudonym Lisa Ben, an anagram of "lesbian") in Los Angeles, and distributed privately in that area from 1947 to 1948.

It included book reviews, news, poetry, short stories, a running bibliography of lesbian literature, letters from readers, and updates from DOB meetings.

[6] An early respondent to the magazine was playwright Lorraine Hansberry, writing a letter of thanks in May 1957 signed "L.H.N", offering $2.00 US for any back issues, and stating she was "glad as heck that you exist.

It was a means of expressing and sharing otherwise private thoughts and feelings, of connecting across miles and disparate daily lives, of breaking through isolation and fear.

[10] In 1963 Barbara Gittings took over editing The Ladder, giving it a more politically urgent stance and adding "A Lesbian Review" under the title of the magazine.

[13] The improvement of the production quality in the magazine was evident due in large part to a monthly donation of $100,000 the DOB received from a source they knew only as "Pennsylvania" that was spread out between 1963 and 1969.

[14] One of the earliest members of the Daughters of Bilitis, Helen Sandoz, took over the editorship, returning to a more apolitical and lighthearted stance, sometimes writing her editorials as her cat.

[15][16] Barbara Grier took over as editor in 1968, having previously contributed to the magazine under a variety of pseudonyms that included Gene Damon, Lennox Strong, and Vern Niven.

In 1970, the DOB disbanded due to organizational problems, disagreements about aligning themselves with homophile organizations composed predominantly of gay men, and supporting the growing feminist movement.

Concerned that the magazine would be lost due to the lack of direction in the national organization, DOB president Rita LaPorte took possession of the 3,800-member mailing list for The Ladder (of which there were only two copies, the subject of which was an annual article to assure women that their names were safe) to Reno without the knowledge of Martin and Lyons, and she and Barbara Grier continued to publish it until September 1972 when they ran out of funds.

[7] In 1975, Arno Press released a nine-volume compilation of The Ladder in hardback as part of their series "Lesbians and Gay Men in Society, History, and Literature" with a short foreword by Barbara Grier.

[17] In 1956, the Daughters of Bilitis wrote their mission statement, which was printed on the inside of every cover of the magazine until 1970: From the beginning, The Ladder sought to reach out to women who were isolated by assuring them in essays and editorials that they were not alone.

Contributions often featured essays on famous lesbians and bisexual women throughout history such as Radclyffe Hall,[19] Queen Christina,[20] and Renée Vivien.

Book reviews of current paperbacks were regular features, including a heated exchange in print between contributors to The Ladder and author Marijane Meaker as Ann Aldrich from 1957 to 1963.

Meaker's books We Walk Alone from 1955 and We, Too, Must Love from 1958 were her version of Donald Webster Cory's The Homosexual in America, a nonfiction account published in 1951 about what it was like to live as a gay man in the US.

There was a marked difference in the tone of the magazine after Barbara Gittings heard Frank Kameny speak at the national DOB convention that attempting to find the cause of homosexuality was a waste of time since it was equal to heterosexuality.