Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T22:05:56.672Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Mattachine Society’s Use of Loose Coupling as a Strategy for Covert Political Action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2020

Molly S. Jacobs Open the ORCID record for Molly S. Jacobs [Opens in a new window]
Molly S. Jacobs*
Affiliation:
University of California Los Angeles, Center for the Advancement of Teaching, Powell 190, Los Angeles, CA90095
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Covert political organizing is a vital means by which subordinate groups express grievances against authorities or elites. This article develops an understanding of the process of covert organizing to show how the selection of an organizational structure is a strategic decision. Using original, archival data from the Mattachine Society, a homosexual organization founded in 1950, and the affiliated Mattachine Foundation, I show how the structure of the organizations enabled leaders to segment their audiences and adapt to challenges from outside and inside the group. In particular, I use the concept of a loosely coupled system, emphasizing relations between organizations, to show how organizations can work with varying degrees of discretion. Moreover, building off analytically similar cases in the literature, I demonstrate that a loosely coupled system enables both organizational flexibility and covert political action.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , Winter 2020 , pp. 725 - 746
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Social Science History Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Archival Sources

Citizens’ Committee to Outlaw Entrapment (1952) Box 1, Folder 14, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar
Coates, Paul (1953) “Editorial in the Los Angeles MIRROR.” Box 1, Folder 8, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar
Fifth Order of the Mattachine Society (1953) “A call to all members of the Mattachine Society,” Box 1, Folder 19, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar
Hay, Harry (1950) “Remarks for first discussion group,” Box 1, Folder 21, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar
MacDonald, Eann (1950) “Preliminary concepts,” Box 1, Folder 21, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar
Mattachine Foundation Inc. (1952a) “By-Laws of the Mattachine Foundation Inc., ratified 7-29-52,” Box 1, Folder 7, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar
Mattachine Foundation Inc. (1952b) “Minutes of the meeting of the Administrative Council of the Mattachine Foundation, 16 September 1952,” Box 1, Folder 15, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar
Mattachine Foundation Inc. (1953) “Official statement of policy on political questions and related matters,” Box 1, Folder 16, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar
Mattachine Society (1951) “Missions and purposes,” Box 1, Folder 5, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar
Mattachine Society (1952) “Second order minutes, 12 September 1952,” Box 1, Folder 15, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar
Reiger, Marilyn P. (1953) “Letter from Marilyn P. Reiger to the Mattachine Foundation,” March 23, 1953, Box 1, Folder 8, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar
Rowland, Chuck (1953a) “Letter from Chuck Rowland to Harry Hay,” March 11, Box 1, Folder 10, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar
Rowland, Chuck (1953b) “Letter from Chuck Rowland to Jerry Brissette,” Box 1, Folder 9, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar
Social Semantics Division of the Mattachine Foundation, Inc. (1952) “Remarks delivered at San Juan Capistrano preliminary discussion group in December 1952,” Box 1, Folder 25, Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.Google Scholar

References

Barnett, William P., and Carol, Glenn R. (1995) “Modeling internal organizational change.” Annual Review of Sociology 21 (1): 217–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beekun, Rafik I., and Glick, William H. (2001) “Organization structure from a loose coupling perspective: A multidimensional approach.” Decision Sciences 32 (2): 227–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bullough, Vern L. (2002) Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. Routledge.Google Scholar
Carr, Edward Hallett (1985) The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917–1923. Vol. 3. W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Clemens, Elisabeth S. (1993) “Organizational repertoires and institutional change: Women’s groups and the transformation of US politics, 1890–1920.” American Journal of Sociology 98 (4): 755–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Emilio, John (1983) Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dharan, Bala G. (2002) “Financial engineering with special purpose entities,” in Brazelton, Julia K., and Ammon, Janice L. (eds.) Enron and Beyond: Technical Analysis of Accounting, Corporate Governance and Securities Issues. CCH Incorporated: 103–22.Google Scholar
DiMaggio, Paul, and Powell, Walter W. (1983) “The iron cage revisited: Collective rationality and institutional isomorphism in organizational fields.” American Sociological Review 48 (2): 147–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Simon (2010) “The American gay rights movement and patriotic protest.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 19 (3): 536–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hay, Harry (1996) Radically Gay: Gay Liberation in the Words of Its Founder, ed. Will Roscoe. Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Hsu, Greta, and Hannan, Michael T. (2005) “Identities, genres, and organizational forms.” Organization Science 16 (5): 474–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loftin, Craig M. (2007) “Unacceptable mannerisms: Gender anxieties, homosexual activism, and swish in the United States, 1945–1965.” Journal of Social History 40 (3): 577–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcus, Eric (2002) Making Gay History: The Half-Century Fight for Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights. Perennial.Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug, Tarrow, Sidney, and Tilly, Charles (2003) “Dynamics of contention.” Social Movement Studies 2 (1): 99–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meeker, Martin (2001) “Behind the mask of respectability: Reconsidering the Mattachine Society and male homophile practice, 1950s and 1960s.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 10 (1): 78–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, John W., and Rowan, Brian (1977) “Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony.” American Journal of Sociology 83 (2): 340–63.Google Scholar
Michels, Robert (1915) Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. Hearst’s International Library Company.Google Scholar
Morrill, Calvin, Zald, Mayer N., and Rao, Hayagreeva (2003) “Covert political conflict in organizations: Challenges from below.” Annual Review of Sociology 29 (1): 391–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, Bernard S. (1956) “Communist international front organizations: Their nature and function.” World Politics 9 (1): 76–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orton, J. Douglas, and Weick, Karl E. (1990) “Loosely coupled systems: A reconceptualization.” Academy of Management Review 15 (2): 203–23.Google Scholar
Scheitle, Christopher P., Dollhopf, Erica J., and McCarthy, John D. (2017) “Spiritual districts: The origins and dynamics of US cities with unusually high concentrations of parachurch organizations.” Social Science History 41 (3): 505–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheitle, Christopher P., and McCarthy, John D. (2018) “The mobilization of evangelical protestants in the nonprofit sector: Parachurch foundings across US Counties, 1998–2016.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 57 (2): 238–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, James C. (1989) “Everyday forms of resistance.” The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies (4): 3–33.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. (2008) Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sears, James Thomas (2006) Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Hal Call Chronicles and the Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation. Harrington Park Press.Google Scholar
Singh, Dharmvir (2010) “Incorporating with fraudulent intentions: A study of various differentiating attributes of shell companies in India.” Journal of Financial Crime 17 (4): 459–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starks, Brian (2009) “Self-identified traditional, moderate, and liberal Catholics: Movement-based identities or something else?” Qualitative Sociology 32 (1): 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, Marc (2012) Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, James D. (1967) Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory. Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Timmons, Stuart (1990) The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement. Alyson Publications.Google Scholar
Tinker, Tony, and Carter, Chris (2003) “Spectres of accounting: Contradictions or conflicts of interest?” Organization 10 (3): 577–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, Edward T. (2009) “Privatizing participation: Civic change and the organizational dynamics of grassroots lobbying firms.” American Sociological Review 74 (1): 83–105.Google Scholar
Weick, Karl E. (1982) “Management of organizational change among loosely coupled Elements,” in Goodman, Paul S. (ed.) Change in Organizations: New Perspectives on Theory and Research and Practice. University of Michigan: 375–408.Google Scholar
White, C. Todd (2009) Pre-Gay LA: A Social History of the Movement for Homosexual Rights. University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Wuthnow, Robert (1988) The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith since World War II. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar