February 7 in A.A. History
In 1920, F. T. Bedford incorporated Penick & Ford, Ltd., which had previously been a partnership.
The partnership had been formed by William Snydor Penick and his brother-in-law, James Polk Ford, in Shreveport, Louisiana, to sell barrel syrups and canned molasses. The monopolistic Corn Products Refining Company bought a 25 percent stake, but was forced to sell it after a Supreme Court ruling resulting from President Theodore Roosevelt's trust-busting campaign.
Meanwhile, F. T. Bedford (son of E. T. Bedford, who ran Corn Products Refining) had purchased a Douglas Starch Works facility in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which had “massively” exploded in May 1919, destroying the entire plant and killing 48 people. What remained had been sold by one of the founding Douglas brothers to Penick & Ford in December 1919. The plant would be rebuilt to produce corn syrup. By 1922, the company would have fully recovered, and by 1923, Penick & Ford would begin paying preferred dividends to shareholders.
Over the next two decades, the company would thrive by producing numerous private label brands—Brer Rabbit Molasses, Brer Rabbit Syrup, Penick Syrup, Penick Salad Oil, Douglas Starch, Penford Corn Syrup, Penford Corn Sugar, and Douglas Feed. Under Bedford’s direction, the company would further diversify by acquiring other food lines, such as Vermont Maid Syrup in 1928 and My-T-Fine Desserts in 1934.
How does this relate to A.A.? On p. 4 of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill W. “was staring at an inch of the [ticker] tape which bore the inscription XYZ-32 It had been 52 that morning.” In the May-June 1938 version of his story, “XYZ” had been “PFK,” the stock symbol for Penick & Ford, a company he was known to have researched while he and Lois were on their 1925–27 stock analysis* tour of companies [left: Bill W. outside the Cedar Rapids facility, c. 1926]—having switched from a Harley to a used de Soto or Dodge—and in which he presumably held a substantial stake at the time of the Great Wall Street Crash of October 1929.
* The term “stock analysis” was apparently not in use at the time; in fact, Bill has been credited with being an early contributor to the concept. Indexes to Moody’s Investment Survey of the late 1920s contained many examples of entries like “Penick & Ford Stock, Analysis,” which is the earliest I could definitively locate anything like the term “stock analysis”.
The partnership had been formed by William Snydor Penick and his brother-in-law, James Polk Ford, in Shreveport, Louisiana, to sell barrel syrups and canned molasses. The monopolistic Corn Products Refining Company bought a 25 percent stake, but was forced to sell it after a Supreme Court ruling resulting from President Theodore Roosevelt's trust-busting campaign.
Meanwhile, F. T. Bedford (son of E. T. Bedford, who ran Corn Products Refining) had purchased a Douglas Starch Works facility in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which had “massively” exploded in May 1919, destroying the entire plant and killing 48 people. What remained had been sold by one of the founding Douglas brothers to Penick & Ford in December 1919. The plant would be rebuilt to produce corn syrup. By 1922, the company would have fully recovered, and by 1923, Penick & Ford would begin paying preferred dividends to shareholders.
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| Bill W. outside Penick & Ford's Cedar Rapids facility (c. 1926) |
How does this relate to A.A.? On p. 4 of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill W. “was staring at an inch of the [ticker] tape which bore the inscription XYZ-32 It had been 52 that morning.” In the May-June 1938 version of his story, “XYZ” had been “PFK,” the stock symbol for Penick & Ford, a company he was known to have researched while he and Lois were on their 1925–27 stock analysis* tour of companies [left: Bill W. outside the Cedar Rapids facility, c. 1926]—having switched from a Harley to a used de Soto or Dodge—and in which he presumably held a substantial stake at the time of the Great Wall Street Crash of October 1929.
* The term “stock analysis” was apparently not in use at the time; in fact, Bill has been credited with being an early contributor to the concept. Indexes to Moody’s Investment Survey of the late 1920s contained many examples of entries like “Penick & Ford Stock, Analysis,” which is the earliest I could definitively locate anything like the term “stock analysis”.
In 1945, the Alcoholics Anonymous District Office opened in Cleveland, Ohio. It was located in the Williamson Building on the southeast corner of Public Square. Its first secretary was [non-alcoholic] Laverne Hawkins. The telephone number was Cherry 1-7387. The purpose of the office—more commonly called an Intergroup or Central Office in other locales—was to provide services to individual and prospective members, to serve as a source of information, and to distribute literature to groups and individuals. In its first month, the office received 31 calls; some were requests for help and others were inquiries about meeting locations.
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