October 24 in A.A. History

1939: The Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) published the third [right] in Elrick Boyle Davis’s series of five articles, “Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here.” It read, in part,

The ex-drunks cured of their medically incurable alcoholism by membership in Alcoholics Anonymous, know that the way to keep themselves from backsliding is to find another pathological alcoholic to help. Or to start a new man toward cure. That is the way that the Akron chapter of the society, and from that, the Cleveland fellowship was begun.

One of the earliest of the cured rummies had talked a New York securities house into taking a chance that he was really through with liquor. He was commissioned to do a stock promotion chore in Akron. If he should succeed, his economic troubles also would be cured. Years of alcoholism had left him bankrupt as well as a physical and social wreck before Alcoholics Anonymous had saved him.

His Akron project failed. Here he was on a Saturday afternoon in a strange hotel in a town where he did not know a soul, business hopes blasted, and with scarcely money enough to get him back to New York with a report that would leave him without the last job he knew of for him in the world. If ever disappointment deserved drowning, that seemed the time.

1943: Bill and Lois W. [far left] left home for their first major A.A. tour. Bill called it their “trip to the coast,” and they stopped in at least three places: Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon, where they “looked in on Doc H., an Oregon chiropractor who was struggling with the alkies in Portland”; and Seattle, Washington, where they “first met businessman Dale A. [near left], who with real valor was trying hard to hold a small band together.” Bill and Lois returned home 87 days later, on January 19.

1973: The newly created Trustees’ Archives Committee held its first meeting. The committee consisted of alcoholic general service trustee Dr. George G. as chair, two non-alcoholic trustees—Rev. Lee Archer Belford and Dr. Milton A. Maxwell—and Archivist Nell Wing, who had been appointed A.A.’s first Archivist in 1972 [right: all four respectively].

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1951: Hospital Progress, the journal of the Catholic Hospital Association, published an article [left: p. 1] by Sister Ignatia titled “The Care of Alcoholics.”

1951: The A.A. Grapevine [right: cover] reported in a note titled “Headquarters Highlights” about a number of recordings available from the General Service Office, including:

• The Third Legacy of AA (new, a condensation of Bill [W.]’s remarks opening the historic first meeting of the General Service Conference), 
• Milestones of AA (by Bill W――), 
• AA Traditions (Bill and other AAs discussed the importance of the Twelve Traditions to the future of our society at the International Conference at Cleveland in 1950), 
• The Big Meeting (the final session of the Cleveland Conference, unique as the only recording on which both Bill and Dr. Bob may be heard), and 
• Dr. Bob’s Last Major Talk (recorded in 1947, four years before his death, outlines the early days of AA, with special reference to the growth of the first ‘group’ in Akron, Ohio). 

Finally, the Grapevine adds that “An earlier recording known simply as ‘A Talk by Bill’ has become a ‘collector’s item.’ It is no longer possible to make copies from the master record and the existing supply has been exhausted.” This was Bill's first recording, made in Los Angeles, California, in April 1947.

October 23 in A.A. History

1939: The Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) published the second article [left] in Elrick Boyle Davis’s series of five, titled “Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here”:

There is no blinking the fact that Alcoholics Anonymous, the amazing society of ex-drunks who have cured each other of an incurable disease, is religious. Its members have cured each other frankly with the help of God. Every cured member of the Cleveland Fellowship of the society, like every cured member of the other chapters now established in Akron, New York, and elsewhere in the country, is cured with the admission that he submitted his plight wholeheartedly to a Power Greater than Himself.

1940: Dr. Gilbert “Gib” K., a dentist, wrote to the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City for help, becoming the first alcoholic contact in Milwaukee:

Gentlemen,

Recently there has been called to my attention an article which appeared in the May 17, 1940 issue of the “Green Sheet” of the Milwaukee Journal that interests me very much. Several lengthy columns are there devoted to a general description of your unique attack, or rather approach, in the direction: “alcoholism.” Since the common sense method employed by your “Foundation” seems more nearly to solve my own personal problem than any other I have heard of, I am moved to write you for a little further information. Is there an active group or “chapter” located here in Milwaukee whom I might contact? If not, any other details you may wish to offer me will be greatly appreciated.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1947: Herbert “Herb” D., an American expatriate living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, received another letter from the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City. The office—most likely Bobby B.—“expresses its happiness at the start of an A.A. Group in Brazil.” It is unclear exactly how or when this group was formed. However, the minutes of a 1950 meeting reveal the following:

Portuguese	English translation
Data – aniversário. Na reunião de hoje deliberamos comemorar o 3º (terceiro) aniversário da Fundação do Grupo A.A. do Rio de Janeiro no dia 5 (cinco) de setembro próximo. A referida data ficará, por tradição, como a data oficial da fundação do Grupo. Rio de Janeiro, 29 de agosto de 1950. Fernando, secretário.	Date – anniversary. At today’s meeting we decided to celebrate the 3rd (third) anniversary of the Foundation of Grupo AA do Rio de Janeiro on the 5th (fifth) of September. The aforementioned date will remain, by tradition, as the official founding date of the Group. Rio de Janeiro, August 29, 1950. Fernando, secretary.

1949: Dr. William D. Silkworth [near right] and Fulton Oursler [far right] joined the Alcoholic Foundation Board.

1950: In an A.A. Grapevine article titled “Too Far West Group” [left: cover], E. K. of Seattle, Oregon reported on…

the recently organized “Too Far West Group” of Adak, Alaska [right, with Razorback Mountain behind]. Six members of various Seattle groups, all firmly grounded in AA principles, form the nucleus of this first formal AA group on the fog-enshrouded outpost of the Aleutian chain.

With justification, the Adak members believe their group is the farthest west and still part of the North American continent.

How firm a foundation the new group is being built upon can be gleaned from the following lines in a communication received from Oran H., secretary:

“Should any man’s mind lead him into a belief that he is all important, he can most easily throw off such thoughts here in this outpost. He need but go outside about 9:30 on an evening the fog has not settled down—face the majestic bare crags that make up Mt. Moffett, turn around and gaze on the snow capped bondaged [sic] threat of the volcano Sitkea [sic] [left: Great Sitkin Volcano, the volcano being referred to], make a half turn and look out over the cold, bleak, limitless Bering Sea—and if he doesn’t believe in some Power greater than himself—he’s hopeless.”

October 22 in A.A. History

1923: As chemical trade commissioner to Germany for the U.S., Dr. Frederick B. [right, 1923] wrote a report to Charles H. Herty titled “Swiss Coal-Tar Chemical Industry—Prouction, Export and Import Statistics” [left]. 

At that time, the U.S. was highly dependent upon a chemical industry that relied on foreign sources for important raw materials, including potash for fertilizer and sodium nitrate for fertilizers and explosives. In addition, the coal-tar chemical industry, the basis of the synthetic organic chemical industry at the time, was virtually nonexistent in the United States because of a German monopoly. Coal-tar products included most textile and other dyes, many important medicinals, powerful explosives, and chemical warfare gases.

1939: The first public meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in New Jersey took place at the South Orange Community Center [right]. Gordon MacD., a newcomer with only five months of sobriety, along with Herb D., had arranged for the meeting space to accommodate the growing New Jersey Group, which then had between twenty-five and thirty members attending its meetings. The meeting was held on a Sunday evening at 5:30 p.m. and marked the beginning of regular Sunday night meetings at the Community Center. This group, the New Jersey Group, would eventually become the “mother group” for all of New Jersey and later be known as the South Orange Sunday Night Group.

1963: Alcoholism educator and friend of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), Dr. Elvin Morton “Bunky” Jellinek [left, c. 1955–1962], better known as E. M. Jellinek, died of a heart attack at his desk at Stanford University at the age of 72. Jellinek coined the phrase “disease concept of alcoholism” and significantly advanced the movement towards the medicalization of drunkenness and alcohol habituation. His initial study in 1946 was funded by Marty M. [near right, 1955] and R. Brinkley S. [far right, 1957].

According to a 1998 study by Mariana Valverde [left], Jellinek’s research was based on a narrow, selective group of hand-picked A.A. members who completed a self-reporting questionnaire. Valverde noted that the study’s findings were relevant only to “the experience of white, male, middle-class alcoholics in the 1940s.” She also argued that a biostatistician of Jellinek’s stature would have been well aware of the “unscientific status” of the “dubiously scientific data that had been collected by A.A. members.”

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1946: The A.A. Grapevine published a letter, titled “New Interest Created: Australian Branch Notes No. 1,” which was written by Rex A. to the publication in June, four months earlier. It read, in part

The Australian branch of Alcoholics Anonymous came into being in October, 1944. Its founders (all nonalcoholics) were the Reverend Father T. V. Dunlea^*…, Dr. S. J. Minogue^†…, and Mr. A. V. McKinnon⁺…

Now, in June, 1946, we have a convalescent home at Sutherland, capable of housing 20 or 30 patients, who are in need of mental and physical rehabilitation, and have taken over a residential in Sydney where members live, pay rent and go to work; this place can accommodate 20 or so people and in it we have our meeting room, where we congregate twice weekly.…

We estimate our membership at 150. It is too early to state how many have completely recovered, but probably no more than 12. Fifty-odd have shown very marked improvement, their relapses occurring less frequently as time goes on. The rest are just floundering around.

Our greatest difficulty has been to persuade many new members to carry out 12th Step work. No matter how much we talk, plead or point out the dreadful consequences of failure to help their fellow drunk, these lads and lasses just listen and continue to follow their policy of selfish and masterly inactivity. Then they crash. And we tell ’em why they crashed—failure to implement the 12, and particularly the 12th, Step. We help them to their feet again, get them jobs and away they go, keeping sober, buying themselves new suits and frocks, but utterly and completely ignoring the 12th and most of the other Steps, till they crash again and have to pawn their new suits and frocks to keep up their supplies of liquor. We don’t know what you Americans do with these lads and lassies, but we would like to, for they give us dreadful headaches.

Our greatest asset (apart from our founders) is one Frank Sturge Harty^‡ [right]. He is a veteran of World War I, and now runs a radio session of the personal problems type. Frank is an untiring worker for A.A., both on the air and off it. Tall, dark and soldierly-looking, he is to be seen at almost every meeting and frequently visits our home at Sutherland. Although not himself an alcoholic, his life has been as varied and has had as many ups and downs as that of the average inebriate, which naturally helps him to understand us the better.

---

^*Thomas “Tom” Dunlea, OBE [far left]

^†Sylvester John Minogue [center left]

⁺Archie V. McKinnon [near left]

^‡A former religious minister, he was a Sydney radio announcer with a program called “Let’s Talk it Over.”

October 21 in A.A. History

1862:  Bill W.’s maternal grandfather, Gardner Fayette Griffith [right], enlisted in Brattleboro, Vermont, for nine months with his military unit, Vermont’s Company B, 14th Regiment [left: a Company B sergeant, c. 1863], under Colonel William T. Nichols. The unit spent most of those nine months—until July 3, 1863—stationed near Fairfax Court House, Virginia, where they frequently encountered guerrillas and Mosby’s rebel cavalry. They played a crucial role in defeating the Confederate Army at the Battle of Gettysburg.

When Bill was 17, Griffith took him to a large 50th-anniversary reunion in Gettysburg.

1939: The Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) published the first [right] in a series of five articles by Elrick Boyle Davis, titled “Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here”:

By now it is a rare Clevelander who does not know, or know of, at least one man or woman of high talent whose drinking had become a public scandal, and who suddenly has straightened out “over night,” as the saying goes—the liquor habit licked. Men who have lost $15,000 a year jobs have them back again. Drunks who have taken every “cure” available to the most lavish purse, only to take them over again with equally spectacular lack of success, suddenly have become total abstainers, apparently without anything to account for their reform. Yet something must account for the seeming miracle. Something does.

Alcoholics Anonymous has reached the town.

The publication of this series attracted a surge of newcomers, and soon Cleveland A.A. had more members than both Akron, Ohio, and New York City. Bill Wilson would later write,

The Cleveland pioneers had proved… the tremendous fact that A.A., when the word really got around, could now soundly grow to great size.

1985: The 8th World Service Meeting (WSM) took place in New York City with the theme “The World Service Meeting Takes Its Inventory.” Thirty-eight delegates attended. Two recommendations for future WSMs were made: (1) to hold a similar sharing session between WSM delegates and the trustees of the U.S./Canada General Service Board at the Tenth WSM in New York; and (2) to include a Delegates Only Meeting on the agenda for the Ninth WSM, scheduled for Guatemala in 1986. A third recommendation was discussed and forwarded to A.A.W.S. for implementation, namely, that:

A.A.W.S. prepare a booklet briefly highlighting the purpose and history of the World Service Meeting and include recommendations from 1969 to the present. Recommendations will be updated as practicable, and information about interim meetings will also be included.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1946: The A.A. Grapevine published an article [right] by Grace O. [left] titled “Women in A.A. Face Special Problems”, which read, in part,

Now that women form an increasing membership in Alcoholics Anonymous, there seems to be a general feeling that they not only have a specialized problem, but, like the purple cow we’d rather see, they are one!… Here, then, is a list of perplexities and snags.

1. The percentage of women who stay with A.A. is low. Too many of them drop out after the novelty wears off…
2. Many women form attachments too intense—bordering on the emotional.…
3. So many women want to run things. To boss, manage, supervise, regulate and change things.…
4. Too many women don't like women.
5. Women talk too much. Gossip is a cancer to all A.A. groups and must be constantly watched. …
6. Women are a questionable help working with men and vice versa.…
7. Sooner or later, a woman-on-the-make sallies into a group, on the prowl for phone numbers and dates.…
8. A lot of women are attention demanders. Spotlight sisters. They want to be spoonfed [sic], coaxed, babied, encouraged, teased, praised and personally conducted into recovery.
9. Few women can think in the abstract.…
10. Women's feelings get hurt too often.…
11. Far too many women A.A.s cannot get along with the non-alcoholic wives of A.A. members.…

October 20 in A.A. History

1928: Bill W. wrote and signed a pledge [right] in the family Bible: “To my beloved wife that has endured so much, let this stand as evidence to you that I have finished with drink forever.” This would be the first of four such pledges.

1945: Dr. William Duncan Silkworth [left] was appointed director of the 19-bed alcoholics’ ward at Knickerbocker Hospital [right] in New York City. This facility was the first general hospital in the city to establish such a unit, having opened it on Easter Sunday, 1 April. This is significant because, at that time, many general hospitals refused to admit alcoholics directly; their doctors often had to use false diagnoses to get them admitted. Silkworth had likely been involved with the Knickerbocker ward from its inception and would go on to dedicate the rest of his life to treating an estimated 7,000 alcoholics at both Knickerbocker and Towns Hospitals.

1963: Etheldred Frances Folsom [left], better known to members of Alcoholics Anonymous as Sister Francis—having renamed herself after St. Francis—died in Litchfield County, Connecticut. In 1926, she had purchased farmland in Kent, Connecticut, and named it Joy Farm. She had later renamed it High Watch Farm [right], which some claim was the world’s first 12-step treatment center.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1945: The A.A. Grapevine published an unsigned article titled “Evidence on the Sleeping Pill Menace,” [left] summarizing material from the press, magazines and medical journals that stressed the dangers involved in “pills,” especially for the alcoholic.

1945: The A.A. Grapevine published an article [below left] by Bill W. [right: with a hospital patient, 1942] titled “The Book is Born,” which included the following excerpt:

During the first three years of A.A. no one gave a thought to public relations. It was a time of “flying blind,” when we feverishly sought the principles upon which we might stay sober and assist the few alcoholics who came wanting to do likewise. We were entirely preoccupied with the life and death question of personal recovery. It was strictly a man to man affair. We hadn’t even agreed upon a name for our movement. There was no literature.

By the fall of 1937 we could count what looked like 40 recovered members.… The realization that we “had found something” began to take hold of us. No longer were we a dubious experiment. Alcoholics could stay sober. Great numbers perhaps!

Once this spectacular notion gripped us, our thinking underwent a sudden change.…

Publicity? Why of course! Millions of words! Money? Sure! It would take millions, naturally. The matter of money and publicity would be a cinch—just a campaign of high powered selling directed at our American tycoons and editors would quickly settle that question. How could they resist when they saw what we had? Just watch us drunks.

October 19 in A.A. History

1948: Paul H. [left, 1956], a practicing attorney and Rhodes Scholar, wrote to Bill W. [right, 1955], asking him to confirm the details of a story Bill had recounted, which Paul had documented in a memo dated October 12, titled “BILL’S STORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE ‘TWELVE STEPS.’”

On 31 January, Paul and Eileen B.^* had accompanied Bill and his wife, Lois, on a train ride from New York City to Washington, DC [right: the B&O Railroad's Marylander, which ran between New York City and Washington DC from 1890s–mid 1950, image from early 1940s]. The following night, Bill, Lois, and Paul had attended an A.A. banquet where Paul had spoken about the late Fitz M. [left]. During the train ride, Bill shared a verbal account of his writing of the Twelve Steps. In his letter, Paul reminded Bill,

I said that this was the first time I had ever heard the story and that I believe it was of sufficient importance to commit to writing. I am still of that opinion.

Paul enclosed two copies of the memo, stating that if it “needs amplification or clarification, please let me know.” If not, he asked Bill to initial one copy and return it. Paul concluded his letter by saying,

As soon as we reached Washington… I dictated my version of Bill’s story to Eileen B―― who agreed with my version as outlined. This memorandum has been compiled from the original draft, which is now before me, and also from a subsequent conversation with Bill.

---

^*Ms. B. may have been Paul’s secretary, as he “dictated” the story to her; little else is known about her, although she does seem to have been well-known in A.A. circles.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1944: Father Richard “Dick” James Francis Murphy invited three non-alcoholics to help him establish a better way of life for suffering alcoholics by starting Alcoholics Anonymous in Australia. The three were Dr. Sylvester John Minogue [right], who would later become a member of A.A. and who had been in contact for two years with Margaret “Bobbie” B. [left], the second National Secretary of the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City; Father Thomas “Tom” Vincent Dunlea [right], parish priest of Sutherland, New South Wales, and founder of Boys’ Town; and Archie V. McKinnon [left], a nurse at a Sydney mental hospital with “advanced” knowledge of alcoholics and alcoholism.

They set up a tent city in a national park, outside the jurisdiction of the local town council, near Boys’ Town in Engadine [right, c. 1940s], New South Wales. It was described as “a sort of a camping holiday, to keep them away from the Pub and keep them off the Grog.” This approach proved satisfactory at first. Father Dunlea tried to help the down-and-out alcoholics of Sutherland through preaching, concerts, and gifts of money and clothing. Every day, he…

would have a bottle of good wine which he shared out and it was not hogged. This kept down the desire to drink plonk [cheap or inferior everyday wine] and metho [methylated alcohol]. As far as the Alcos were concerned it was a terrific long holiday camp in a pleasant setting away from the slums of Sydney.…

One day while the Father was away someone brought some Metho along and gave it to them. It was either a very poor joke, or a deliberately [sic] an act of wickedness for they all got blithered [drunk] and caused trouble which involved the police having to go up and quell the trouble.

In the end, the attempt was an abject failure.

October 18 in A.A. History

1952: The Saturday Evening Post [left: cover] published an anonymous article titled “I’m a Nurse in an Alcoholic Ward” [right: first two pages]. The author was Theresa “Teddy” R., a nurse at Knickerbocker Hospital [below left, c. 1940; below right: ambulance at Knickerbocker entrance] in New York City. Dr. William Silkworth, a colleague, referred to her as a “red-headed powerhouse.” The teaser for the article read:

The author—a onetime alcoholic—has nursed 5,000 drunks through the fading hours of their most spectacular sprees. Here is what she has faced in salvaging doctors, lawyers, ministers, priests, housewives, and stenographers from drink and the devil.

At the end of her article, Teddy explained her motivation: 

After a month of daily increasing happiness I was struck with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. I was grateful to that lonely handful of men who formulated the AA principles of recovery and set them down; grateful to the thousands of alcoholics who, in the face of every conceivable difficulty and temptation, had picked up these tenets and doggedly clung to them, fighting to hang on to their sobriety so it could be passed on to me. I felt I must do something in return.

When I learned about the A.A. ward at Knickerbocker I knew what that something would have to be. I was a trained nurse. During all the years I had frittered away, that training had seemed meaningless. Now it made sense—I was meant to work in that ward. I bombarded the supervising nurse with telephone calls by day, and prayers to God at night, and three months later I got the job.

These five years have brought deep satisfactions. I can’t convey how much it means to see the transformation in people. They come to us physical, mental and moral wrecks. They leave encouraged but still uncertain. Then, months later, they come back–bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, eager to help; job back, family back, going concerns again, ready to pass on, with dividends, what’s been given to them. To know that I had some small part in this rebirth is a blessing far beyond what I deserve. The failures, the lost ones? Well, they’re sad of course. However, we must accentuate the positive. But for the grace of God, all of us might have been lost.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1944: The Central Bulletin, a monthly newsletter for A.A. members near Cleveland, Ohio, reported [right: article] that a local Young People’s Group had been started this month. This is believed to be the first young people’s A.A. group anywhere.

1944: In Wichita, Kansas, near the center of the state, Sally E. wrote to the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City to request a copy of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, for her husband, Sid. Around the same time, Otis P. from the Kansas City, Missouri group moved to Wichita and reached out to Sid, whose name he had obtained from the Foundation. Together, they started Wichita’s first permanent A.A. group, holding meetings in several hotels and an art studio in the Butts Building [left, c. 1930s].

1944: The A.A. Grapevine published an editorial titled “On Simplicity, of Faith, of Living, of Outlook,” [right] written by Earl T. of Chicago, Illinois. The editorial also includes information about the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA), explaining, among other things, why Marty M., one of its co-founders, chose to break her anonymity.