Growing up, I was only allowed to watch one reality TV show: The History Detectives, which ran for eleven seasons on PBS. Viewers wrote in with questions like, did my grandfather’s pocket watch really belong to Mark Twain, or is that just another family myth? Then, the hosts—a sociologist, an architectural historian, and two auction appraisers—traveled to far-off libraries, scrolled through reams of microfiche, and interviewed other experts in search of an answer.
Somehow, all that reading on camera made for interesting TV, at least for me, the daughter of a classicist and a librarian. In the end, the resolution was often something like, this pocket watch could have belonged to Mark Twain. Along the way, the detectives illuminated the era that might contain the answer with the video footage and illustrations they uncovered in the archive, as if a history lesson was even better than a definitive solution.
They misled me into believing that “history detective” was a viable career, something I might one day become. The truth is, though, queer history needs detectives.
Mary Casal was the first historical figure to demand my services. New to New York City and determined to learn something about my chosen home, I picked up a book about Stonewall, which has become perhaps one of the most celebrated and studied moments in queer history. A single sentence on page eight stopped me in my tracks: “Among the rare early American books to depict lesbian love is the autobiography of Mary Casal, The Stone Wall.” The author noted that this early memoir likely gave the bar, originally called Bonnie’s Stone Wall, its name. I accepted those two pieces of information as fact without question.
I ditched the book about Stonewall and embarked on an obsessive study of Mary that would last years. If I were to make an episode of Queer History Detectives about her, the opening shot might be the day I received a copy of her out-of-print memoir in the mail and tore open the shrink wrap to get at the words inside. There might be a scene where I read the book, originally published in 1930, on Jacob Riis Beach.