March 5 in A.A. History

1870: Emily Ella Griffith [left, c. 1905], who would become Bill W.’s mother, was born in East Dorset, Vermont, to Ella Brock and Gardner Fayette Griffith. The second of three children, her birth is documented in the 1870 U.S. Census, which lists her name as “Jane” and her age as “3/12” of a year. This census data was recorded on June 25, when she was three months and twenty days old.

1941: After reading Jack Alexander’s article, “Alcoholics Anonymous: Freed Slaves of Drink, Now They Free Others,” in The Saturday Evening Post, Robert M. MacW. wrote [right: letter] to the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City from his home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, saying,

    Am greatly impressed with the working of this group[.] And would appetite [sic] any information you may be able to furnish me as to whether there is such a group organized in Pittsburgh, their address, or the requirements of organizing such a group.

    The Alcoholic Foundation would reply eight days later.

1941: The first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, took place at the Jacoby Club [left], located at 115 Newbury St., in the office of Dr. Lawrence M. Hatlestad, the club's non-alcoholic assistant secretary.
    In June 1940, Dr. Hatlestad had written to the Alcoholic Foundation, stating that he had read “your splendid book Alcoholics Anonymous” and declaring, “You have come upon something of real merit.” He noted that his club shared similar objectives and that some of its members were alcoholics who had stopped drinking. He expressed his eagerness to connect with A.A. members in Boston.
    Following the publication of Jack Alexander’s article in The Saturday Evening Post, Ruth Hock compiled a list of 31 inquiries from the Boston area to be contacted. Paddy K., who had been in contact with Ruth and Bill W. since 1939, had been trying to establish an A.A. meeting in Boston since as early as 13 November 1940. When Ruth was unable to locate Paddy, she sent the list to Dr. Hatlestad. Upon Paddy’s reappearance, something of a row ensured, partly due to the Jacoby Club’s willingness to accept outside contributions.
    Bill would travel to Boston “to straighten things out,” but ultimately, A.A. was banned from using the Club’s facilities.

1943: In his column for the Minneapolis Star-Journal, “In This Corner,” prominent local columnist Cedric Adams  [right] significantly boosted the profile of the local Alcoholics Anonymous when he wrote, in part, the following [left: full column]:

    Two years ago, this corner carried a simple announcement that A.A. was being launched in this area. From an initial membership of three, the group has grown to more than two hundred.

1945: In a short item titled “Alcoholics on the Air,” Time magazine reported on Detroit radio broadcasts of A.A. speakers on a program called “The Crutch” [left: WWJ broadcast tower, built in 1936]. The article appeared in the RADIO subsection of the ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT section [right: magazine cover, the item, highlighted in yellow]. The text of the item read:

    One of Detroit’s citizens stepped up to the microphone one night last week and told how he had “hit bottom” as an alcoholic. To underline his confession, some of the more melodramatic and sordid aspects of his past were dramatized. Then he told of his regeneration. Summed up the announcer: “Alcoholism is a disease … an obsession… an allergy.…”
    The man who “hit bottom” was the first in a parade of anonymous Detroiters who will describe their alcoholic pasts over WWJ every other Saturday (11:15-11:30 p.m., E.W.T.). The series is the first sustained air flight of the famed organization called “Alcoholics Anonymous.”
    Detroit A.A.s give credit for the broadcast project to 62-year-old William Edmund Scripps [a noted aviator], big boss of the Detroit News and WWJ. He was so impressed by A.A.'s reformation of a drunkard friend that he decided to do what he could to boost the organization's Detroit membership (now nearly 400).