September 16 in A.A. History

1971: [Early] Nell Wing [left] became the first official Archivist for A.A. Her friend and a former Trustee, Thomas A. “Tom” S. [right] from Jacksonville, Florida, visited her for the first time in two or three years. They discussed the preservation work she had been doing for some fifteen years. Fifteen minutes after Tom left, Robert E. “Bob” H., General Manager of the General Service Office (GSO), “dashed in… saying hurriedly, ‘Now, Nell, drop everything else you are doing and get right on the archives!’” Apparently Tom had realized she hadn't yet been named GSO’s Archivist and asked Bob to fix this. From that day until her retirement, Nell served as the official GSO Archivist.

Previously, in 1954, she and Edward H. “Ed” B. [left] had been appointed by Bill W. to be a Writing and Research Team; on their own, they had initiated archival activities in 1955.

1972: The remains of Father Edward “Ed” Dowling, S.J. [right], were reburied at Calvary Cemetery^* in Baden, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, where Fr. Ed had grown up. The seminary where he was originally buried, St. Stanislaus, closed in 1971, and the grounds were sold in 1972.

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^*This is the same cemetery where Dred Scott, the Black slave whose attempt to gain his freedom was a key factor in igniting the American Civil War, was buried. Dowling had led the Old Baden Society in its successful effort to identify Scott’s unmarked grave and erect a monument in 1956.

1973: Joe McQ. [far left] & Charlie P. [near left] met when Joe introduced Charlie as the A.A. speaker at an Al-Anon Convention. Joe had wondered if Charlie might be the country-western singer Charley Pride. He wasn’t even the right color, Joe lamented. They instantly discovered their mutual fascination with A.A.’s basic text: the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. What interested them most was that it had been written in a particular sequence to convey certain ideas. That interest began a close friendship which has lasted the rest of their lives. They would frequently meet to discuss the book, often driving 225 miles to meet in each other’s homes.

Soon they were planning meetings (with others, presumably) in hotel rooms at A.A. conventions in Oklahoma and Arkansas, and within a few years, the meetings grew in popularity.

1974: The first Italian-language A.A. group in Switzerland was formed in the Canton of Ticino (known as Tessin in French and German) [right: map of Switzerland, with Ticino highlighted], the southernmost canton of the country and the only one where Italian is the sole official language.

1975: Ernest “Ernie” K. [left, in Egypt], who would later author Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, was admitted to the Guest House’s three-month treatment program for priests after he continued to drink following detoxification at the Harvard Infirmary.

1976: The first Japanese-language 12-Step meeting officially registered as the “Tokyo Group” with the General Service Office in New York City. Following this, activities became more focused, leading to the establishment of Alcoholics Anonymous groups throughout the country.

1976: Harbor House published Bert D.: Hardhat, Inebriate, Scholar [far left: cover] by Al S. [near left, 1947], a biography of Henry Berton “Bert” D. In 1962, with his wife Hazel, Bert founded Harbor House [near right: entrance (Mar 2019); far right: Harbor House itself], a treatment center in Memphis, Tennessee, based on Alcoholics Anonymous principles, religion, and philosophy. Bert’s life was a struggle for sobriety, and Harbor House became his life’s work. It remains in operation today.

September 15

1855: The future Dr. Clark Burnham [near right, c. 1888] was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as a middle child, one of ten children of Mary Pancoast and Rev. Dr. Nathan Clark Burnham Jr. [far right, respectively]. His father practiced law, medicine, and religion, serving as an ordained minister in the Swedenborgian Church. Lois Burnham, who would become Mrs. Bill W. in 1918, would be Clark’s eldest child.

1940: A recently retired and newly sober Cmdr. Junius Lee Cotton [left] arrived at the Naval Air Station (NAS) in Jacksonville, Florida, from Pasadena, California, to organize the first Aviation Training Schools there. The NAS was set to be commissioned on October 15. Cmdr. Cotton would become a key player in the establishment of Alcoholics Anonymous in Florida.

1978: Father Mychal Fallon J. (born Robert Emmett J. on 11 May 1933) [right] got sober. He would die in the attack on the World Trade Center on 11 Sep 2001, while serving as a chaplain for the New York City Fire Department. Although he was not the first to die, he would officially be designated as Victim 0001 because his body was the first to be recovered and taken to the medical examiner.

2001: On the 23rd anniversary of his sobriety, a funeral Mass for Father Mychal Fallon J., 68, was celebrated by Cardinal Edward Egan, the Archbishop of New York, at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Manhattan. Father Mychal had died in the World Trade Center attack just four days earlier. The Mass was attended by 3,000 people, including former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. President Clinton said that his death was a “special loss” and urged, “We should lift his life up as an example of what has to prevail. We have to be more like Father Mike than the people who killed him” [left: FDNY Memorial to Judge at Engine 1, Ladder 24 in Manhattan].

September in A.A. History—day unknown

2003: Liberty Street published Time magazine’s 80 Days That Changed the World [right: cover, 1st edition, 1st printing], which reflects on more than 80 years of Time’s publishing history by revisiting the significant events that have shaped our lives today. One of those 80 days was June 10, 1935 [below left: anonymized illustration from the book]:

AA Takes Its First Steps
By James Poniewozik

Bill W—–, a stockbroker and a drunk from Brooklyn, N.Y., thought he had found the secret of kicking the bottle. But on a business trip to Akron, Ohio, in May he found himself outside a bar, tempted and desperate. In the past, he had fought the urge by talking to other alcoholics, who truly understood his struggle. Through a church group, he found local surgeon Robert Holbrook S—–.

Dr. Bob and Bill W., as Alcoholics Anonymous members know them, promised to keep each other sober, following Bill W.’s strategy: a simple set of principles — later refined into 12 steps — that would become the foundation of America’s self-help culture. Alcoholics, he said, must admit they are powerless over their addiction. They must make amends to all those they have harmed. And they must submit to God—however they define the deity.

The advice did not immediately take. Dr. Bob went to Atlantic City, N.J., for a convention; several days later, he showed up at the Akron train station, smashed. On June 10, the dried-out but still jittery doctor was due in surgery. That morning, Bill W. gave Dr. Bob a bottle of beer—to steady his scalpel hand. The operation was a success. The beer was Dr. Bob’s last. And the two men pledged that day to work to bring Bill W.’s principles to other alcoholics, one day at a time.

September 14 in A.A. History

1943: An unnamed A.A. member in Chicago wrote the text for “Out of the Fog” [right: cover], which is still available as a pamphlet from the Chicago General Service Office. It begins:

Thirteen months ago I was in an interesting position. No, Murgatroyd, I wasn’t an expectant mother. Had I been, I would have known what to do. I’d merely have written a piece for True Confessions Magazine and thereby earned the necessary $50.00.

This interesting and delicate position of mine, however, was at least pregnant with chaotic confusion. Mine was mainly a confusion in terms—and that, by a carefully arranged coincidence, enables me to drag in a cute saying by my younger son, Jerrold, better known as Jaybo. He was 6 years old at the time and consequently pure of mind, but I have confidence in your ability to enrich the story with the dirtiest possible construction on his remark.

1954: [John] Mark Whalon [left], 70, Bill Wilson's longest, closest, and only local friend, died. As Bill was being born, nine-year-old Mark was among a crowd of neighborhood boys gathered on the porch to listen to Emily's screams, evidence of the strangeness of the adult world.

As an adult himself, he worked as a mailman in rural Vermont, driving 24 miles a day to deliver the mail to 80 homes, six days a week. In January1943, he was the subject of a photo essay in Life magazine titled “Life Rides the Route of a Rural Mailman in Vermont.”

He wrote two books. Rural Peace [near right: cover], published in 1933, is a collection of poems about the carefree moments, hardships, stark realities, and difficult truths of daily life in East Dorset, Vermont. Rural Free Delivery: Recollections of a Rural Mailman [far right: cover] is a 1942 autobiography about growing up and living in East Dorset.

September in A.A. History—day unknown

1989: Dartmouth [College] Alumni Magazine recognized Dr. Bob S. in an article [left, with the recognition highlighted] titled “Dartmouth Undying”^*:

Robert Holbrook S―― ’02, popularly known as Dr. Bob, founded Alcoholics Anonymous.

The entire one-page article seems to be about Dartmouth students’ relationship to alcohol, and seems to be one of a series of 16 articles by that title from September 1988–April 1990, which seem to be focused on oddities concerning the Dartmouth student body.

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^*“Dartmouth Undying” has been a school song since 1921. In the November 1958 issue of the alumni magazine, an anonymously written article, “The College” (which appears to be a repeating column that ran from Feb. 1955–Jan./Feb. 1979), contains the following subtitled section (only its first sentence is quoted here):

Dartmouth Undying

The Class of 1921 last month presented the College with a specially bound volume containing the text of Dartmouth Undying, the poem by the late Franklin McDuffee ’21, which with music written by Homer P. Whitford has become Dartmouth's best loved song.

The Wikipedia article on “Alma Mater (Dartmouth College),” which is about the official school song of Dartmouth, titled “Alma Mater”, says that, “The difficult-to-sing [judge for yourself: here’s a musical rendition of it] ‘Dartmouth Undying’ replaced it in the fall of 1972, but the Alma Mater was restored as the official song in early 1973.” [right: sheet of music/lyrics for “Dartmouth Undying”].

1989: Glen Abbey Books published Richmond W.’s The Seven Points of Alcoholics Anonymous [left: “true” 1st printing].

2001: [Late—New York InterGroup (NYIG) history says, “A little more than two weeks after…September 11, 2001…”] In the aftermath of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, exhausted A.A. members among the firefighters, police, and clean-up crews recognized the need for meetings near Ground Zero. Simultaneously, a Red Cross official reported to the uptown General Service Office that they had received numerous requests for A.A. meetings. The Red Cross assigned A.A. a room in a respite center just southwest of the site, marked by a door bearing a circle and triangle. To accommodate everyone, Meetings organized by Southeast New York Area 49 and the New York Intergroup became places where A.A. members could not only meet but also rest, talk, and meditate. Members crafted an iron plaque [right] and presented it to GSO and NYIG as a memento.

September 13 in A.A. History

1937: [March 1937? March 1938?] Florence R. of Westfield, New Jersey, became the first woman to get sober in the New York City group of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) and the second woman to do so anywhere. She was the ex‑wife of a man Bill W. knew from Wall Street; she had divorced him, thinking this would eliminate the cause of her drinking.

She ended up in Bellevue Hospital [right, c. late 1930s], where her ex‑husband took Bill’s wife Lois to see her. Bill and Lois got her out of Belle­vue, and she stayed with them for a while before moving in with other A.A. members and Ruth Hock. She began attending meetings in March 1937 but struggled with maintaining her sobriety. Because of her, the name “One Hundred Men” would be discarded for the Big Book and the publishing company of the same name.

After she got sober, her story, “A Feminine Victory,” was included in the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous. In writing it, she prayed for inspiration to tell her story in a way that would encourage other women to seek the help she had received.

1939: According to index cards of members maintained by the Central Office in Chicago, Illinois, Sylvia K. [left] had sobered up on this date. Her doctor, Seth Brown of Evanston, Illinois, had somehow learned about the new book, Alcoholics Anonymous, despite the lack of publicity at that time. He read it and called Sylvia, who would later say, “That call marked the turning point in my life.”

She is widely regarded as the first woman to achieve permanent sobriety and would play a crucial role in founding Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) in Chicago. Her story, “Keys to the Kingdom,” appeared in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions of Alcoholics Anonymous.

1941: WHJP in Jacksonville, Florida, aired “Spotlight on A.A.,” the first ever radio series about Alcoholics Anonymous.

1946: Bob H., Mr. P., and Bill W., all members of the Richmond (Virginia) Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, presented a program about the Fellowship at the Rotary Club.

According to a September 19 article titled “Alcoholics Anonymous Put On Rotary Program” [right] published by the Rappahannock Record of Kilmarnock, Virginia, Bob “told about the organization and the work it is doing across the country,” while Mr. Philips and Bill…

gave personal experiences of their lives as alcoholics, telling how they had lost their business, friends and everything they had as drunks in the gutter before starting life anew as members of Alcoholics Anonymous.… Alcoholics Anonymous is composed of alcoholics who have voluntarily joined the organization and have overcome the curse of drink. The speakers said that about 75% those who join stay with the organization and never take another drink thus becoming useful citizens of society again.

1952: Hector G. was admitted to a clinic in Buenos Aires [left: location of Buenos Aires in Argentina], for serious alcoholism. There, he was treated by Dr. Roberto Pochat, an Argentine physician who had recently returned from the United States, where he completed a course on alcoholism at Yale University. Additionally, Dr. Pochat had been in contact with many members of Alcoholics Anonymous in the U.S., who had explained A.A. methods to him in great detail and facilitated his attendance at numerous meetings.

During Hector’s hospitalization, Dr. Pochat had him read A.A. pamphlets and the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous (in English), and suggested that he seek help from the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City after his discharge.

1969: Leonard V. Harrison [right], 77, Chairman of the Alcoholic Foundation Board of Trustees from March 1942 to October 1950 and from April 1956 to April 1961, died at his home. He also served as Commissioner of Welfare for New York City and was a director of the Community Service Society of New York [City].

September 12 in A.A. History

1912: Henry Berton “Bert” D. was born in Clark, Arkansas. In 1962, he would found Harbor House, a treatment center in Memphis, Tennessee.

1941: Robert Shaw, 70, died of a heart attack [far left: obituary; near left: grave] in his car in the driveway of his home [right], 253 West Penn Street, Long Beach, New York. A friend of Willard Richardson, he joined the Alcoholic Foundation Board of Trustees in December 1939 as its third Chairman, becoming the first Class A Trustee to hold that position.

He had been born in Chicago, Illinois, where he and his father, William Walden Shaw, had founded the Dake Bakery Company. This bakery was one of 40 acquired by Adolphus Green in 1890 to form the American Biscuit and Manufacturing Company. In 1898, this company merged with William H. Moore’s New York Biscuit Company and John Gottlieb Zeller’s Richmond Steam Bakery to create the National Biscuit Company, which later became known as Nabisco. Shaw retired in 1914 while still in his 40s.

1942: U.S. Assistant Surgeon General Dr. Lawrence Kolb [left] spoke at a dinner honoring Bill W. and Dr. Bob S. The following month, Bill would inscribe Kolb’s copy of Alcoholics Anonymous with the words, “To Dr. Lawrence Kolb / In grateful appreciation of his friendship / Bill W――” [right]. At the 10th General Service Conference in 1960, Bill would express his thoughts about Kolb:
Old Fitz Mayo, one of the early AA’s and I visited the Surgeon General of the United States in the third year of this society and told him of our beginnings. He was a gentle man, Dr. Lawrence Kolb, and has since become a great friend of AA. He said,

“I wish you well. Even the sobriety of a few is almost a miracle. The government knows that this is one of the greatest health problems but we have considered the recovery of alcoholics so impossible that we have given up and have instead concluded that rehabilitation of narcotic addicts would be the easier job to tackle."

1946: A dispute arose over a funding solicitation from the National Council for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA), written by Marty M. [left, 1940s]. It was printed on NCEA letterhead, which included the names of the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), Dr. Bob S. and Bill W.

Marty had founded the NCEA with the support of the two co-founders. In her role at the NCEA, she regularly broke her anonymity. Initially, Bill believed this was acceptable, and Marty spoke extensively about A.A. during her continual lectures across the country. This occurred before the publication of the Traditions. Even so, to many A.A. members, the inclusion of the co-founders’ names on NCEA letterhead implied a connection between A.A. and NCEA. In response, the Alcoholic Foundation published both a letter and an article in the October A.A. Grapevine denying any affiliation between Alcoholics Anonymous and the NCEA [right]. This incident contributed to the widespread belief that “total non-affiliation was the only solution” to A.A.’s relationship with other organizations.

September in A.A. History—day unknown

1970: [Early] Bill W. [left, at General Service Conference in April 1970] became completely bedridden.

1974: Bob Pearson [right] was hired as the General Manager (GM) of the General Service Office (GSO); he served in that role until October 1984. He got sober in New York City in 1961. His story, “A.A. Taught Him to Handle Sobriety,” appears in the 3rd and 4th editions of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. Bob served on the General Service Board as a Class B (alcoholic) Trustee from 1968 to 1974 and continued working at GSO until 1986. After retiring, he contributed to A.A. in many ways, including writing a history of the Fellowship that covered the period from the publication of Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age in 1957 through A.A.’s 50th [51st?] year in 1985, but also included additional early history. Unfortunately, this manuscript never led to a published history, but it is available online.

September 11 in A.A. History

1915: Bill W. and Lois Burnham [left, 1915] were secretly engaged.

2001: The Underwood Building at 30 Vesey St. in Manhattan was damaged in the attack on the World Trade Center by Islamist terrorists but was not destroyed [near right, c. 1940; center right: looking West down Vesey St from Church St., 11 Sep 2011; far right, c. 2009]. From 1940 to 1944, it served as the first headquarters of the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City. Built in 1911 by John Thomas Underwood, the building originally housed the Underwood Typewriter Company [left: advertisement, c. 1911]. In 2008, it sold for nearly $15,000,000 [~$23,300,000 in 2026].

2001: Father Mychal Fallon J. [right], born Robert Emmett J. on 11 May 1933, died in the World Trade Center attack while serving as a chaplain for the New York Fire Department [left: iconic photo of Fr. Mychal J.’s body being carried from the World Trade Center, 11 Sep 2001]. He was an American Franciscan friar and Catholic priest who was very supportive of the gay community. Although others died before him that day, he would be designated as Victim 0001, the first official fatality of the attack. He got sober on 15 September 1978, and his funeral Mass would be held on his 23rd sobriety anniversary at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Manhattan.

September in A.A. History—day unknown

1953: The first Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) group in Argentina was founded in Buenos Aires.

After reading Alcoholics Anonymous and getting sober in December 1952, Hector spent nearly nine months unsuccessfully attempting to establish an A.A. group. During that period, he remained in contact with the United States while visiting alcoholics in jails and hospitals. Through the Alcoholic Foundation’s General Service Office (GSO) in New York City, he met A.A. members who were visiting Buenos Aires. He also obtained unofficial A.A. publications from abroad and corresponded with numerous individuals. Gradually, Hector deepened his understanding of Alcoholics Anonymous and reinforced his own sobriety.

In September 1953, another alcoholic, Arthur M.—a British national who had lived in Argentina throughout his life—contacted Hector. While visiting family in the United States, Arthur had received treatment for alcoholism and subsequently joined A.A. in Dallas, Texas. Before returning to Buenos Aires, he obtained Hector’s name from GSO.

Working together with renewed energy, and aided by Arthur’s firsthand knowledge of A.A. in the United States, the two men succeeded in founding Argentina’s first A.A. group.

1965: The A.A. Grapevine [left: cover] published a brief article titled “Best of Bill,” which stated in part:

About a year ago, we began to think of printing readers’ favorites of Bill's articles in separate form so that they would be readily available now that some of our back issues containing them are sold out. We chose five articles on subjects which are no strangers to any of us—Fear, Faith, Honesty, Humility, and Love—and had them printed in small booklets (3½ × 5½") all packaged in a little envelope. We hope to add others to the package from time to time, so we gave the group of articles the overall title, “The Best of Bill.”

… We just returned from the Convention in Toronto, where the “Best of Bill” was introduced to the more than 10,000 people who attended this exciting, important and exhausting gathering of AAs around the world. The Grapevine had two booths on the Convention floors which were in continual danger of capsizing beneath the waves of AAs rushing back and forth to panel meetings. We're pretty certain thousands never saw our booths, or our new “Best of Bill” packet. But we are also certain (because we counted) that thousands stopped to look and to buy. We hope you will like the “Best of Bill,” too. Turn the page to see about prices and ordering [right: order form].