Mary Casal, pseudonym: 1864 - Unknown

OutHistory is starting this entry in the hope of engaging the LGBT community and their friends in the detective work of discovering the original name and identity of the woman who wrote her autobiography, The Stone Wall, published in Chicago by Eyncourt Press, in 1930.

Alphabetical List of Research Leads:

Allen, Albert H. See Eyncourt Press below.

Anderson, Margaret. Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap were key figures in the literary scenes of Chicago, New York, and Paris in the 1910s and 1920s. Their magazine The Little Review introduced Modernism to a contemporary American audience. In 1886, Anderson was born to a middle-class family in Indianapolis. In 1908, she moved to Chicago, where she wrote book reviews for the religious magazine Interior and the Chicago Evening Post, worked at a bookstore, and learned about printing at the political magazine Dial.

Baim, Tracy, ed. Out and Proud in Chicago: An Overview of the City's Gay Community. "In 1930, Chicago's Eyncourt Press published a pseudonymous autobiography by Mary Casal titled The Stone Wall, which detailed in a matter-offact way her life ..."

Boston, Massachusetts. Casal says she taught at a very select girls' school on Beacon Hill, in Boston. Such a school was Miss Catherine Ireland's Private School. If Casal was born in 1864, she would have been 20 in 1884, so her teaching was probably in the 1880s.

Casal, Mary.

Does this name suggest any clues to the author's original name?

Casal, Mary A.

Listed in July 1883, as one of those who answered all the puzzles in the May number of St. Nicholas magazine.

Chicago

Why was this book published in Chicago? Is this a trivial fact or is a substantial clue> Did the author live in Chicago, or nearby? Are there any known lesbians of the Chicago area who were born in or around 1864? What lesbians were around or in Chicago in 1930? See Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap.

Darling, Sherry A. "A Critical Introduction to The Stone Wall." Tufts University, 2002. Darling is identified as teaching at Tufts University, Dept. of Drama. Authorized facsimile, made from the microfilm mater copy of the original dissertation published by UMI. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Tufts University, 2003. Author's abstract: "In this critical introduction to The stone wall: an autobiography, I provide additional documentation about Ruth Fuller Field [whose pen name was "Mary Casal"] and her extraordinary life, and place her narrative within the larger context of the writing and publishing on same-sex desire that took place at the turn of the century. The revelation of these findings increases our understanding not only of this particular woman and her life narrative, but also that of lesbian relationships between the 1860s and the 1930s and the construction of identify as a performative process." Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-134). Newberry Library copy lacks t.p. Finding and telling -- Play [a]part: individual transgressive acts -- From solo to scene partner -- The ensemble as transgressive community -- The writer and the critic: lesbian and gay autobiography as a genre -- Epilogue -- Appendix: "Ruth Fuller Field--Knitting poem." Xerographic copy.

Eyncourt Press

Are there any surviving archives of Eyncourt Press? What more can we learn about this press that might indicate why it was willing to publish a lesbian's autobiography. Who was involved in Eyncourt Press? Where was it in Chicago? Is that address a clue? What other books did they publish, of what other authors?

An advertisement for a book published by Eyncourt Press, Jotham Meeker, Pioneer Printer of Kansas, appears in The Rotarian, a periodical, in August, 1930, page 52, and lists the press's address as 440 South Dearborn.

The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature, edited by Ethel Seaton, Anna Carolina Paues, Leslie Nathan Broughton, Mary Sidney Serjeantson, John Horden, vol. 12, and published in 1931, on pages 10-12, lists a number of books published by Eyncourt. Many of these books are about the history of printing and typography and numbers are by Douglas Crawford McMurtrie, a typographer, bibliographer, and historian of printing in the U.S. One book is by Douglas C. McMurtrie and Albert H. Allen, and titled Jotham Meeker, Pioneer Printer in Kansas (Chicago: Eyncourt Press, 1930)

Grier, Barbara (alias: Gene Damon). "Life History of a Lesbian: Mary Casal. Reproduced from Lesbian Lives.

Apparently this is an undoctored life history of a Lesbian. Mary Casal wrote her life story in a casual conversational and entirely frank manner. Since Miss Casal was born in 1864 and was at the time of writing 65 years old, the complete detail of her love affair is almost amazing. Miss Casal was born in New England on a farm and apparently was a part of the class described as upper middle class. Her parents were a rather odd mixture, her mother a descendent of the very pure Puritans and her father a descendent of a distinguished English family of artists and musicians. She was the youngest of nine children and her childhood friends were all male... By the time she had completed her college education she had had three or four ... crushes and one of them had apparently been physically satisfactory. In her effort to make her autobiography utterly untraceable, Miss Casal has obscured the sequence of her life to an extent that makes dates impossible to find in relation to her big love affair. However, somewhere in her middle thirties she met and fell in love with a girl two years younger. The affairwas entirely complete and very happy for both women for many years, approximately fifteen years or a little more. During these happy years the women discovered many other women of like temperament and the authoress expresses her initial surprise at this, because previously Mary and her friend Juno had thought they were the only women in the world who loved another woman.

Miss Casal's revelations about the Lesbian world of New York and Paris around the turn of this century are most interesting. Although Miss Casal tries to give the impression that she was never a professional author, it is hard to believe in view of the quality of writing in her memoirs. I heartily recommend this as almost a class case of lesbianism. Unfortunately the book is very rare and quite expensive. Those willing to take the trouble can borrow the book through the Library of Congress.

Heap, Jane. Born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1883, Heap grew up on the grounds of a mental asylum where her father was a warden. In her 20s, she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, taught art, and got involved with community theater.

McMurtrie, Douglas Crawford. See Eyncourt Press.

Stone Wall, The

The autobiography is filled with clues to its author's life. Can someone make a complete, detailed list of these clues, with the page numbers, so we can refer back to the source?