The Stone Wall

Mary Casal was the pseudonym of Ruth Fuller Field (1864-1935), an American teacher, commercial artist, and writer born in Deerfield, Massachusetts. In 1930, she published The Stone Wall, the first known lesbian autobiography in the United States, drawing on a lifetime of experience she could recount only under a false name. The book recounts her childhood, her survival of sexual abuse, her failed marriage, and her enduring love for the woman she called Juno. Field's true identity remained unknown until 2003, when researcher Sherry Ann Darling connected the memoir to its author through archival records. Field died in California in 1935.