author
Mary Casal
1864–1935
Best known for The Stone Wall, this writer published an unusually frank life story that has become an important early work in American lesbian history. Writing under the name Mary Casal, she turned personal experience into a memoir that still draws readers today.
1 Audiobook
The stone wall : An autobiography
by Mary Casal
About the author
Mary Casal was the pen name of Ruth Fuller Field (1864–1935), an American writer also described in biographical sources as an artist, teacher, and entrepreneur. She was born Ruth White Fuller in Deerfield, Massachusetts, and later used the name Mary Casal for her 1930 memoir The Stone Wall.
That book is the work she is most remembered for. It has been described as the first known autobiography of a lesbian woman published in the United States, and it is notable for its direct, personal account of love, identity, and social life in an earlier era.
Although little of her writing survives beyond this landmark memoir, Mary Casal remains a meaningful figure for readers interested in LGBTQ+ history, autobiographical writing, and voices that were rarely published so openly in the early twentieth century.