Mary Casal

Ruth Fuller Field (June 17, 1864 – February 22, 1935), also known by her pen name Mary Casal, was an American writer known for writing The Stone Wall, the first known autobiography of a lesbian woman in the United States.

Early life and education

Ruth White Fuller was born on June 17, 1864, in Deerfield, Massachusetts, into a middle-class family, to Joseph Negus Fuller and Lydia Ann White. She had eight siblings, and was the youngest of the family. Her uncle was the painter George Fuller. She was prone to socialize mainly with boys in Deerfield. As a child, she attended Deerfield Academy, where she met her first girlfriend.

After completing her primary education, Fuller attended Illinois Industrial University (now the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign). She studied literature and science, and served as secretary for the student government before dropping out in 1883.

Adult life

After leaving IIU, she began working as a schoolteacher at a girls' day school in Beacon Hill, Boston. She married Frank A. Field on October 12, 1887. The pair divorced by 1894 following stillbirths in 1889 and 1891 and extramarital affairs. The father of the second stillbirth was alleged to be William McMurtrie, "The Professor" in The Stone Wall.

Following the separation, Fuller patented a children's toy. Her entrepreneurship is especially notable because it went against the traditional womanly values at the time. While working on and advertising the toy, she traveled further northeast and closer to New York City. It is during her stay at the Margaret Lousia Home in New York City that she met Emma Elizabeth Altman, dubbed "Juno" in her autobiography, and they quickly fell in love. Fuller and Altman were married in a private ceremony in 1894.