February 20 in A.A. History

1939: About 400 pre-publication multilith copies of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, were delivered to Bill W. and Hank P., although they may have arrived the next day instead.

1941: The Toledo (Ohio) Blade published the final installment of a three-part series on Alcoholics Anonymous by Seymour Rothman [right], which appeared over three consecutive days [left: the series’ headlines, in order].

1947: Charles B. Towns [right: image and obituary] passed away at home. His son, Edward, took over the management of the Charles B. Towns Hospital and continued to operate it until its closure in 1965.

1960: Bill W. celebrated the 20th anniversary of Alcoholics Anonymous in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by signing a program with the inscription, “For Philadelphia's 20th—Nothing but the very best! Ever Devotedly, Bill” [left: program cover, inscription, respectively].

2007: While hosting CBS’s The Late Late Show with Craig F――, Craig F. openly discussed his past struggles with alcoholism during his opening monologue. He noted that he had been sober for 15 years as of two days earlier, making what seemed to be a thinly veiled reference to Alcoholics Anonymous [right: Craig F. during his monologue, 20 Feb 2007].

February 19 in A.A. History

1917: Robert P. [right: with his wife, Betsy] was born in Kansas City, Missouri, as the only child of his somewhat nomadic parents, Agnes Greenlees and Ridley Stillson P.
    He did not receive formal schooling until the third grade but quickly excelled academically, skipping grades and graduating with honors from Kansas University in 1938 with a Bachelor of Arts. While at KU, he served as editor of both the university’ s humor magazine and yearbook.
    A skilled writer, Bob became the center of a national scandal when a Scribner’s Magazine article, “Ghost Behind the Grade,” published in 1938, revealed that he had paid his way through college by ghostwriting hundreds of grade-specific papers for students across dozens of classes and seven universities. “Both the Associated Press and the United Press carried it,” Bob recalled in a 2004 interview. “It almost cost me my diploma.”
    His writing career took him to New York City, where he worked in public relations for Shell Oil Co. from 1938 to 1971. While there, he met and married Betsy Dodge.
    When World War II began, Bob enlisted as a U.S. Navy officer and served as a gunnery officer aboard a destroyer escort, participating in numerous Atlantic convoys. He also wrote speeches for a Navy admiral and two U.S. presidents—Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman. His ship played a key role in the historic capture of a German U-boat north of the Azores—just days before D-Day. This marked the first time a submarine was boarded and seized intact, preserving its hardware and Enigma radio codes, later dramatized in the film U-571. Bob was honorably discharged in 1945 with the rank of lieutenant commander.
    After the war, Bob and Betsy settled in Riverside, Connecticut. His most notable achievements at Shell Oil involved the company’s sponsorship of major sports. Working with NBC, he played a crucial role in popularizing golf by bringing the sport to live television for the first time with Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf. He also played a role in Shell’s sponsorship of Craig Breedlove’s efforts, which began in 1962, to break the world land speed record in a jet-propelled car at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
    However, it was Bob’s personal struggles that ultimately defined his life. He developed an addiction to alcohol during his Navy service, and two decades later, nearly died from the disease. In 1961, doctors urged him to join a fledgling Alcoholics Anonymous group in Greenwich, Connecticut. He did, found sobriety and dedicated himself to nearly 50 years of service to the organization.

1940: Time magazine [left: cover] published a brief item titled “Medicine: Alcoholics Anonymous,” highlighting the 60-person Rockefeller dinner meeting held earlier in the month, where A.A. members and supporters gathered.

1940: Newsweek magazine [right: cover] featured an article titled “Alcoholics Anonymous” in its SCIENCE section. It began:

    Medicine usually claims to cure only about 2 per cent of the cases of acute alcoholism it treats. Last week a non-medi­cal group appeared which made the unusual claim that 25 per cent of its cases were cured. Called Alcoholics Anony­mous, the group was a club composed of ex-drunkards and men trying to overcome the liquor habit who, for obvious reasons, prefer their names to remain unknown. Not particularly anxious for publicity, it nevertheless came into the limelight last Thursday evening when John D. Rockefeller Jr. gave a dinner party for educators and others interested in the club’s work.

1941: Bill W. wrote to the trustees of the Alcoholic Foundation Board about the budget for the upcoming year. Here are edited excerpts:

    Many new groups have been formed. Our membership has tripled, now totaling about 2,000... An article is to appear on March 1 in the Saturday Evening Post... The name Alcoholics Anonymous will appear on the outside cover. Our message will be brought to the whole nation—nearly a million alcoholics will hear of us… only a very small proportion of our book sales have come directly from the groups. The general public still buys most of the books... the Alcoholic Foundation should set up a special account called ‘AA operating expenses.’ All contributions from the groups should be segregated in this fund... each group is entitled to know exactly how such money is spent... an accounting ought to be made by the Trustees every six months showing [finances]…

1941: The Park City Daily News of Bowling Green, Kentucky, reported on the establishment of a new A.A. group in Hopkinsville [left: article].

1953: After reading a quip that Father Ed Dowling [right] had written on a Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions draft—“It has a little bit of the elder statesman smell of the lamp*”—Bill W. responded with humor: “We have given the manuscript a heavy dose of chlorophyll to deaden that elder statesman smell.”
*Father Ed’s complete statement was “I suspect that The Steps will be a book to be meditated rather than read. It contains the basic message. The audience identification is there. It has dignity, reverence and stylistic readability. It has a little bit of the elder statesman smell of the lamp. I sense that it makes a Scylla and Charybdis route between admiring laity in the boxes and the needy drunks in the gutter.”

1967: Father “John Doe” (Ralph P.) [left], believed to be the first Catholic priest in A.A., passed away. Glenn C. later recounted:

    His niece told me that a physician gave Ralph a shot for airsickness and inadvertently used a contaminated needle. Father Ralph contracted hepatitis, and all the efforts made by the doctors at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in Owensboro could not save him.

    Father Ralph had gotten sober in Indianapolis, Indiana, on 10 November 1943, and remained so for the rest of his life. He was well-known for his Golden Books series and other writings related to recovery.

2017: Melvin “Mel” B. [right], 91, sober from 15 April 1950, died of heart and lung failure at Mercy Health St. Anne Hospital in Toledo, Ohio. A retired public relations manager for Libbey-Owens-Ford Co., he was a prolific writer, contributing to The Toledo Blade and authoring many books and articles, including Pass It On and many pieces for the A.A. Grapevine.

February 18 in A.A. History

1942: Father Ed Dowling [right] wrote to Bill W.:

    In the confusion of World War II, the AA personality is keeping an easy pace, convinced that somehow, some time, the cockeyed world will land on its feet. I am grateful to God for the AA virus in my spiritual blood stream.

1943: The U.S. federal government granted A.A. members the right to use cars for emergency 12th-step work, even amidst the nationwide gasoline rationing that began on 1 December 1942. While most citizens were restricted to just three gallons of gasoline per week—except for factory workers and traveling salesmen, who received eight gallons—A.A. members were permitted an exemption for this important service. Note that the rationing of gasoline was implemented not to conserve fuel, but to preserve rubber [left: ration card].

February 17 in A.A. History

1939: The final typed draft of the Big Book [near right: one of very few remaining copies] was sent to the multilith—likely not the newer photolith process—printer [far right: Addressograph-Multigraph Corporation Multilith Model 1227, commonly called a “duplicator,” introduced in 1933]. While this event may have occurred on Monday, 20 February, it seems more likely that it took place the previous Friday. This date is supported by a letter from Alcoholic Foundation trustee Frank Amos to Dorothy Critchfield on Thursday, 16 February, in which he said that the book “is about ready for press.” Then, on Tuesday, 21 February, he informed fellow trustee Willard Richardson that “the photolith copies of the book are now completed,” and enclosed a copy for him.

1940: James B., known as “Jim” or “Jimmy,” [left, c. 1918] reached out to Charlie B., whom he had met at a New York City Alcoholics Anonymous meeting about two years earlier. Having recently moved from New York to Philadelphia just four days earlier for a “very good new position,” Jimmy was eager to connect, since he had two years of sobriety.
    Charlie had read the newly published book Alcoholics Anonymous. Together they decided to establish a Philadelphia A.A. group. At that time, only three other A.A. groups existed in the world: in Akron, Ohio; New York City; and Cleveland, Ohio.

1943: John Henry Fitzhugh “Fitz” M. [near right] married Mrs. Ruth Helen Monroe Jelly [far right] in Harrison, Mississippi. Tragically, he would die from cancer in October.

1953: Margaret “Bobbie” B. [right] committed suicide. She had succeeded Ruth Hock as the National Secretary for the Alcoholic Foundation, becoming only the second—and last—person to hold this position.
    From early 1942 until mid-1949, Bobbie had served as the primary contact for all A.A. groups worldwide, personally responding to most letters sent to the Alcoholic Foundation. Unbeknownst to Bill W., she had become addicted to her work. In her letters, she confessed that she couldn’t stop. Driven by her responsibilities, she continued to work late into the evenings at home, leaving little time for her own recovery. Although she had initially joined A.A. as a member struggling with a drinking problem, she gradually lost touch with her own program—neglecting meetings and forgoing a sponsor.
    In 1949, Bobbie had resigned from her position at the A.A. national office. Almost immediately, she relapsed and struggled with her addiction for the next four years. Ultimately, the disease had overwhelmed her, and she took her own life in February 1953.
    Her passing was a tragic loss for Bill W. and for the many people she had introduced to A.A. Bobbie was deeply mourned and remembered around the world.

February 16 in A.A. History

1938: Rockefeller associate Frank Amos [left] returned home from his trip to Akron, Ohio, where he evaluated the members and program of Alcoholics Anonymous. According to reports, he left with a positive impression of A.A. in Akron. The following day, Dr. Bob S. would write to Bill W., describing “a very delightful visit from Mr. Amos” and noting that “he seemed very favorably impressed.”
    Frank would spend the next four days preparing a four-page report titled “Notes on Akron, Ohio Survey” for John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his other associates.

1941: Maryland’s The Baltimore Sunday Sun published Harrison Johnston’s article on Alcoholics Anonymous titled “John Barleycorn’s Victims Seek Strength in Unity” [right]. The article featured a rearview photo of an A.A. group and read, in part:

    The story of “Alcoholics Anonymous,” which now includes a Baltimore group, is the story, in the words of one of its members, of a “bunch of drunks trying to help one another stop drinking.…”
    “Alcoholics Anonymous” meet regularly as a group twice a week—once in a semi-formal “business” meeting, once in a completely informal and spontaneous social gathering—without benefit of alcohol. They base their hopes of success on a mystical belief in aid from without themselves (all else having failed), from God, “as we understand Him,” and on constant association with other alcoholics who can understand and help them and whom they in turn can understand and try to help. They may thereby draw upon the companionship of other alcoholics, men and women like themselves with whom they alone are psychologically able to discuss their difficulties, and try to lose themselves in the rehabilitation of others even less controlled than they, a proven form of uplift characteristic of all group organizations, the church itself not least among them.
    From out this mixture, without any recourse whatsoever to medicine, “Alcoholics Anonymous” claims complete success—with no relapses—with about fifty per cent of its members (always supposing them to be sincere in their efforts to stop), and eventual success—after occasional relapses—with an additional twenty-five per cent.…
    The Baltimore group was founded only eight months ago, in June, 1940, and now numbers about forty members, of whom five are women.

1945: Charles Welch, a non-alcoholic [left], was appointed Honorary Lifetime Vice President [near right: certificate] of the first A.A. group in Vancouver, British Columbia. After his wife’s earlier death from alcoholism, he had opened his home [far right] to host the group’s meetings for the first six months.
    Welch also initiated advertising for A.A. in Vancouver. The first ads [left: example] appeared in The Vancouver Daily Province from 16 November 1944, to 1 February 1952, helping to increase membership from just 4 to 41. Subsequently, similar ads ran in The Vancouver Sun from 2 January 1945, to 27 June 1951, and in The Vancouver News-Herald from 20 September 1949, to 6 July 1951, further broadening A.A.’s presence in Vancouver.

1978: The Computerized Bulletin Board System (CBBS), recognized as the first public dial-up BBS, officially went online [right: original CBBS hardware]. Developed by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, members of the Chicago Area Computer Hobbyists’ Exchange (CACHE), CBBS transformed early digital communication.
    This system maintained a running tally of callers, recording a total of 253,301 connections before its retirement around 1990. Although no supporting documentation exists, it seems likely that some A.A. members who were knew each other would have used CBBS to share experience, strength and during the early days of online interaction.

February 15 in A.A. History

1918: A girl named Suzanne [right, as an older child] was born into a troubled family and spent two years in institutional care. At the age of five, she found a real home when Dr. Bob and Anne S. adopted her.

1940: The Evening Star in Washington, D.C., published a letter to the editor under the heading “Corrects Misconceptions of ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’” [left] from Harold G. Waters, addressing inaccuracies in their February 9 report on the Rockefeller dinner titled “Rockefeller Is Backing Move to Cure Alcoholics.” The article had claimed, “Rockefeller was host at dinner to a ‘secret organization’ known as ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’…”
    Waters clarified:

“Alcoholics Anonymous” is neither secret nor an organization. There are no officers, no dues. It may more nearly be called a fellowship. It exists not only in New York, but also in other cities, and has already done great work here in Washington. A book, also entitled “Alcoholics Anonymous,” which gives a good idea of the work that is being done, may be either purchased or rented from the Y. W. C. A. library.

1946: The A.A. Tribune, a newsletter published by A.A. members in Des Moines, Iowa, since at least December 1943, reported that 36 new members joined after a visit from Marty Mann [date of visit unknown; right: Des Moines celebrates its centennial (1946)].

1947: Vital Speeches of the Day published Marty Mann’s address to the Economic Club of Detroit, which was delivered to both a live audience and radio listeners. The speech focused on the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA) and Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) [left: Marty speaking at such an event].

February 14 in A.A. History

1939: The leadership of Alcoholics Anonymous, consisting of the trustees of the Alcoholic Foundation—non-alcoholics Willard Richardson, Frank Amos, and A. Leroy Chipman, associates of Rockefeller—as well as non-alcoholic trustee Dr. Leonard Strong [above: first four, left to right, respectively], and alcoholics Bill R.^* and Harry B. [above: fourth and fifth from left] gathered for an unofficial meeting. Non-trustee Bill W. [above: sixth from left] was absent but sent a letter addressing “the progress of the book.”
    During the meeting, Bill R. resigned but was immediately appointed to the Advisory Committee. Harry B. was elected chairman pro tem. Frank Amos provided an informal report on the funds received and distributed. The trustees agreed to present a formal report, budget, and plan for raising necessary funds at their next official meeting.
    Unfortunately, this delay prompted Bill W. and Hank P. [far left] to start selling stock [near left: fake certificate with real signatures] in the newly formed One Hundred Men Corporation, as they urgently needed funds. The meeting minutes clearly state that the Alcoholic Foundation would remain completely independent One Hundred Men, with no responsibility for its actions and operating outside its supervision. In essence, the Rockefeller contingent had implicitly conceded to Bill and Hank that A.A. could self-publish their book.

---

^*Contrary to widespread and persistent rumors, he was not removed for drinking, but rather due to the increased demands of work and family life.    

1949: Dr. Gilbert “Gib” K., 52, died from cancer [near right: headstone; far right: obituary from the Chippewa Herald-Telegram, Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, 15 February 1949, p. 3].
    He had been the founder of Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s first A.A. group. Just three months prior, in November 1948, Bill and Lois W. had visited him in the hospital. During that visit, Gib had urged Bill to have his violin as a gift. Bill had accepted it and would cherish it for the rest of his life.

1954: Bill W’s father, Gilman Barrows W., 84, died penniless in Vancouver, British Columbia. His ashes would be returned to East Dorset, Vermont, for burial in the family plot [left: headstone].

1971: Three weeks after his death, Alcoholics Anonymous groups worldwide held a memorial service to honor Bill W.

2007: Nellie “Nell” Wing [right], 89, died at Sunrise Assisted Living in Wayne, New Jersey. From 1947 to 1982, she had served as the secretary and administrative assistant to Bill Wilson at the Alcoholic Foundation/General Service Office in New York City. Additionally, she had been the first Archivist for Alcoholics Anonymous and authored a memoir about her experiences, titled Grateful to Have Been There.

February 13 in A.A. History

1937: [Wed, Feb 11?] The “drunk squad” of the New York City Oxford Group gathered at the home [near right] of Henry “Hank” [far right] and Kathleen P. in Teaneck, New Jersey. This meeting, characterized by its “alcoholic style,” marked the first time such a group—later to be part of Alcoholics Anonymous—convened in New Jersey. One primary purpose of the meeting was to introduce William “Bill” R. [left] to the emerging fellowship, as he had recently gotten sober. Bill and his wife, Kathleen, of Hackettstown, New Jersey, subsequently began attending Tuesday night meetings at the home of Bill and Lois W. in Brooklyn.
    Hank’s story in the 1st edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, was titled “The Unbeliever,” while Bill R.’s was “A Business Man’s Recovery.”

1940: About two years sober, James “Jim” or “Jimmy” B. [right] moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for a “very good new position.” Just twenty-five days later, with six other alcoholics, he started the city’s first A.A. group, making it the fourth in the country, following those in Akron, New York City, and Cleveland. 

    Jim’s story, “The Vicious Cycle,” appeared in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.