William Dorr Lambert Legg

William Dorr Lambert Legg (1904—July 26, 1994), was trained as a landscape architect at the University of Michigan, then was a landscape architecture professor at what is now Oregon State University by 1935. In the 1940s, he moved back to Michigan to care for his father and the Legg family business. In 1949, he moved to Los Angeles with his partner, Merton Bird. In 1950, the couple founded Knights of the Clock, a support group for interracial gay couples, and became active members of the national Mattachine Society. But Legg later split with Mattachine to co-found ONE, Inc. As publisher of ONE’s journal, Legg was forced to sue what was then the United States Post Office Department to defend the gay journal’s right to be sent through U.S. mails. Legg eventually won the case, One, Inc. v. Olesen (355 U.S. 371) at the U.S. Supreme Court. In the 1950s, Legg also traveled to Germany to recover what was left of the archives of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft. Legg died in Los Angeles on July 26, 1994.