in Pershing Square, where he met Champ Simmons, a man who had been a lover of one of Gerber's Society compatriots. This man told Hay about the Society's brief history, warning Hay of the futility of trying to organize gay men. Although Hay would later deny that he had any knowledge of previous LGBT activism, he was inspired by this knowledge to conceive in 1948 a proposal for a gay men's political and social group. In 1950 Hay's idea reached fruition when he and several other men founded the Mattachine Society, the first enduring LGBT rights organization in the United States. Gerber was posthumously inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1992. The Henry Gerber House, located at 1710 N. Crilly Court, Chicago, contains the apartment in which Gerber lived when he founded the Society. It was designated a Chicago Landmark on June 1, 2001. In June 2015 it was named a National Historic Landmark. The Gerber/Hart Library at 6500 N. Clark St in Chicago is named in honor of Gerber and early civil rights defender Pearl M. Hart. Footnotes References Notes Sources Bianco, David (1999). Gay Essentials: Facts For Your Queer Brain. Los Angeles, Alyson Books. . Blasius, Marc and Shane Phelan, eds. (1997). We Are Everywhere: A Historical Sourcebook of Gay and Lesbian Politics. New York, Routledge. . Bullough, Vern L. (2002). Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. New York, Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press. . Fone, Byrne (2001). Homophobia: A History. MacMillan. . Hay, Harry, with Will Roscoe (ed.) (1996). Radically Gay: Gay Liberation in the Words of its Founder. Boston: Beacon Press. . Hogan, Steve and Lee Hudson (1998). Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia. New York, Henry Holt and Company. . Katz, Jonathan Ned (1976). Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A.: A Documentary. Crowell. . Katz, Jonathan Ned (1983). Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary. Harper & Row. (1994 edition, published by Carroll & Graf). Kepner, Jim and Stephen O. Murray (2002). "Henry Gerber (1895–1972): Grandfather of the American Gay Rights Movement". Collected in Bullough, Vern L. (2002). Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. New York, Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press. . Loughery, John (1998). The Other Side of Silence – Men's Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth-Century History.