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=                         Ruth_Fuller_Field                          =
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                            Introduction
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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
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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
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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.

Fuller dropped her toy business and ran a school with Altman within
their home, working as a commercial artist in the process. Altman
later became engaged to "Jack", a gay man, leading Fuller to travel
Europe for two years. Fuller and Altman's relationship ended, as well
as their friendship, but they continued to correspond with one
another.

Fuller worked as secretary of the Chamber of Commerce in Napa,
California. She lived in California until her death in 1935 after
living there for 20 years. Fuller died of chronic myocarditis and
arteriosclerosis in Tujunga, California, on February 22, 1935.


                         ''The Stone Wall''
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Prompted by editor Douglas Crawford McMurtrie, Fuller wrote the
autobiography 'The Stone Wall' in 1928 and 1929. It was published by
Eyncourt Press in 1930, under the pseudonym Mary Casal, when Fuller
was 65 years old. Her true identity was kept secret due to the nature
of the writing, as she wished not to expose herself or those who she
had had relationships with. The autobiography accounts her life as a
queer woman during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It details
the relationships she had in secret with other women. Many of these
women were given aliases in order to protect their identities,
including her teacher while attending Deerfield Academy, "Flo", and
most notably, "Juno", who she remained in a relationship with for the
longest period of time.

Fuller's true identity wasn't discovered until 2003, during research
carried out by Sherry Ann Darling for her doctoral thesis at Tufts
University.


''The Stone Wall'''s influence
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Fuller's impact on queer communities created various spaces for
acceptance in a time full of strife concerning LGBTQ+ rights. Some
stories have linked the autobiography's name to Bonnie's Stone Wall
(later the Stonewall Inn) in Greenwich Village, a tearoom which opened
the same year the book was released.

Fuller's work inspired other literature, including Barbara Grier's
'Lesbian Lives: Biographies of Women from the Ladder'.


License
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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Fuller_Field