March 10 in A.A. History

1886: Frank S. Shaw, a descendant of Mayflower passengers, was born in Bath, Maine, to William R. and Jane Stinson Shaw. In 1914, he would join the Wall Street firm J.K. Rice, Jr. & Co. [right: post card solicitation, 1920] and eventually became a partner. Shaw remain with the firm until 1957, when he retired for health reasons, two years before his death in 1959. He would become a good friend of Bill W. and an early supporter of Bill’s stock market theories. Shaw would marry Elsie Valentine, a close childhood friend of Bill’s wife, Lois.

1916: The day after Pancho Villa [near right] raided Columbus, New Mexico, and the U.S. Army post at nearby Camp Furlong, killing 10 civilians and 8 soldiers, President Woodrow Wilson [left] ordered an armed force under Brigadier General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing [far right] to lead a “punitive expedition” into Mexico to capture Villa and prevent future raids. As a result, Norwich University readmitted and mobilized its sophomore class in June, who had all been expelled following a hazing incident in February. One was Bill W.

1939: After a 10-week separation, Hank P. [far left] returned from Bill and Lois W.’s home at 182 Clinton St. in Brooklyn to his wife, Kathleen [near left], at their home at 344 N. Fullerton Ave. in Montclair, New Jersey.

March 9 in A.A. History

1953: Works Publishing, Inc. was renamed Alcoholics Anonymous Publishing, Inc. [below: paperwork].  

Other significant events in March
                 (no specific date known)                

1919: [Early] Four months after the end of World War I, Bill W. sailed from Bordeaux, France, to New York City aboard the SS Powhatan [right: docked in New York City, 6 Sep 1918]. 

1934: After Bill W. relapsed following his first admission to Charles B. Towns Hospital, his wife, Lois, quit her job at Macy’s [left, early 1930s]. Hoping to keep him away from alcohol, she took him to his sister Dorothy and Leonard Strong’s farm in Green River, Vermont [right: aerial view with close-up inset of the farm]. However, on his first day of fishing, Bill encountered a generous man with a bottle and relapsed. They would stay until summer.

1937: [1938? 13 Sep 1937?] Florence R. of Westfield, New Jersey, became the first woman to get sober in A.A.’s New York City Group and the second woman to do so anywhere. Previously married to a Wall Street acquaintance of Bill Wilson’s, Florence had believed that divorce would eliminate the cause of her drinking. Ironically, her ex-husband had been the one who brought Lois Wilson to visit her at Bellevue Hospital. Bill and Lois had gotten her out, and Florence stayed with them briefly before moving in with other A.A. members. Although she began attending meetings in March 1937, staying sober proved challenging. Florence’s presence in the group influenced the decision to drop the name “One Hundred Men” for the Big Book (and its publishing company). Her story, “A Feminine Victory,” would later appear in the first edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

1939: Reviewers were returning multilith copies of the draft of Alcoholics Anonymous that had been sent out in February. Certain readers noted that the text frequently used directives and the words “you” and “your.” While “greatly impressed and enthusiastic,” Dr. James Wainwright Howard [left], Assistant Attending Psychiatrist at Mountainside Hospital in Montclair, New Jersey, felt the tone was too dogmatic and directive. He suggested toning down the use of direct instructions to the reader in favor of relating personal experiences. Drs. William D. Silkworth [near right] and Harry M. Tiebout [far right] offered similar advice.

1940: Mort J. [left] had bought the book Alcoholics Anonymous in September 1939 and tossed it into his suitcase without even glancing at it. He had then embarked on a multi-week spree, traveling from Denver, Colorado, to California, through Arizona, and into Nogales, Guaymas, and Hermosillo in Mexico, ultimately arriving in Palm Springs.
    There, he had regained consciousness and discovered the book in his luggage. “Shaking violently,” he began to read it. From that day in November 1939, he never drank again.
    In Los Angeles, he contacted the Alcoholic Foundation, and Ruth Hock provided him with the phone number and address of Kaye Miller, a non-alcoholic who had been the driving force behind the first A.A. meeting and group in Los Angeles.
    Mort called on Kaye at her home and asked, “Where's the meeting?”
    “There are no meetings anymore,” Kaye replied. “I’m disgusted. I’m going to Hawaii or Europe.”
    “Where are all the members of A. A?”
    “They are all drunk,” she said bitterly.
    “Do you have any names for me? I want to get in touch with some alcoholics in town.”
    “You’re wasting your time.” She had cleaned out her apartment and thrown all the names of prospects and letters of inquiry into a wastebasket. Mort picked them out of the trash, pocketed them, and then left.
    Kaye’s last words to him were, “Don’t waste your time on them. I’ve called on them all. They can’t stay sober.”
    As Mort walked home, he sifted through the contacts and letters he had taken from Kaye. He found the address of Cliff W., whose wife had written to A.A. in New York for help after reading about the organization in the syndicated column of Beatrice Fairfax, the “Dear Abby” of that era.
    He went to Cliff’s house and rang the doorbell. Cliff opened the door.
“My name is Mort J. I’m a member of Alcoholics Anonymous; may I come in?”
    When Mort showed up at Cliff Walker’s door [right: 4222 Vantage Ave, Studio City in April 2024, likely his home in 1940], Cliff listened to Mort’s story, despite having no desire to stop drinking or attend A.A. meetings. However, he was spellbound as Mort recounted the story his last roaring drunk. Mort explained that, as he understood it, he could not stay sober unless he carried the message to other alcoholics. Would Cliff come to a meeting? Could he help organize one?
    Cliff liked Mort, and more as a favor to him, to help him stay sober, he agreed. Years later, after he had joined A.A. himself, Cliff reflected, “I had no desire to join Alcoholics Anonymous. But I had to see Mort again. He attracted me. And years later, when Bill W. came out with the 11th tradition, I realized how true it was when he said A.A. is a program of attraction rather than promotion.”
    Looking for a meeting place, Mort contacted Dr. Ethel Leonard, who worked with alcoholics and happened to be the house physician at the Hotel Cecil [left, c. 1928] on Main St. in Los Angeles, California. Through Dr. Leonard's assistance, Mort rented a large room on the mezzanine for $5.00 [~$113 in 2025]. This was the first public meeting of A.A. in Los Angeles, held on a Friday at 8 p.m. in March 1940. It was open to anyone who desired to stop drinking. Ted LeBerthon, a columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News, wrote about the meeting in his column, noting that it was held in the heart of Skid Row.
    “I chose this location,” Mort J. later recalled, “because the price was right, and there was a good psychological reason for holding a meeting down there because I knew it would show us where we were headed unless we did something about it—that was our destination, Skid Row, the drunk tank, sleeping in the alleys and under the bridges, winos, dead men…”
    Besides Mort and Cliff, about 10 other men attended—men who had failed to sober up at Johnny Howe’s classes or Kaye Miller’s meetings earlier that year. Mort urged them to give A.A. another chance.
    Mort didn’t know how to run an A.A. meeting. There was no coffee, no doughnuts; all he had was his copy of Alcoholics Anonymous. He opened the meeting by stating that he had not had a drink in five months. He asked if anyone would read a few pages. When no one volunteered, Mort opened the book to Chapter 5 and began reading, “Rarely have we seen a person fail…”
    Thus began the practice of reading a portion of Chapter 5, which eventually spread throughout A.A.

March 8 in A.A. History

1862: At age 26, Jeremiah “Jerry” McAuley [right] was released from Sing Sing Prison after receiving a pardon from New York Governor Horatio Seymour. He initially sought connection with Christians, but he found their faith “wavering, unstable, half-and-half” which “staggered” him. The lessons he learned during the 10 years after his release would profoundly shape his approach when he founded the first rescue mission in North America in 1872.

1944: In an article titled “The Church and the Alcoholic” [left] published in The Christian Century, Rev. Alson Jesse Smith^*, he likened Alcoholics Anonymous to a call made by Sebastian Franck^† in his 1531 book, Von dem greulichen Laster der Trunkenheit (The Horrible Vice of Drunkenness) [right]. Franck wrote, 

    It [drinking or drunkenness] is too deeply rooted and sin has become a habit. All would have to be reborn and receive new heads. Yes, a new world would have to come.

    Smith argued that A.A. offers such “new heads.” Until now, Franck’s book had been an obscure work on the topic of drunkenness.

---

^*Alson Smith [left, c. 1936] was a liberal independent scholar, a Methodist Episcopal minister, and a freelance journalist who had been reporting on the far right since the 1930s.

^†Sebastian Franck [right] (20 Jan 1499–c. 1543) was a 16th-century German freethinker, humanist, and radical reformer. Despite being an ordained priest, he combined the humanist's passion for freedom with the mystic's devotion to the religion of the spirit, and came to believe that God communicates with individuals through a portion of the divine remaining in each human being. He dismissed the human institution of the church and claimed that theology could not properly claim to give expression to this inner word of God in the heart of the believer. For example, he wrote, “To substitute Scripture for the self-revealing Spirit is to put the dead letter in the place of the living Word…” and “God is an unutterable sigh, lying in the depths of the heart,” which Ludwig Feuerbach called “the most remarkable, the profoundest, truest expression of Christian Mysticism.”

March 7 in A.A. History

1940: The first meeting of the Philadelphia Group of A.A. was held at the home of George “Bud” S. [right: Bud’s high school yearbook photo], located at 1212 Arrott^* Street [left] in Northeast Philadelphia. Bill and Lois W., and 15 others, attended this open meeting.

---

^*While all sources mention Arnott Street, no such street exists in Philadelphia. The closest street name is Arrott, which is ¾ mile (1.2 km) long, running between the 4600 and 4700 blocks from Frankford Avenue northwest to Adams Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia. The 1940 Census records confirm that 1212 Arrott Street was the residence of George and Laura S.

1941: Ruth Hock [left], National Secretary for the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City, responded to a letter from Dale A.  [right] of Seattle, Washington just four days after he wrote it. She recommended that Dale contact Dave W., also of Seattle, with whom she had been corresponding for nearly a year. Ruth suggested that they start an Alcoholics Anonymous group in Seattle. Dave and two others soon did, though Dale was not among them. Dale would attend his first A.A. meeting in July and soon after establish a meeting in his home. Later, he would be recognized by many as the founding father of Seattle A.A.

2002: Clinton “Duke” Paddock, 98, died in Jacksonville, Florida [right: gravestone]. A pioneerng member of Alcoholics Anonymous in Akron, Ohio, he played a key role in establishing A.A. in Toledo, Ohio.

March 6 in A.A. History

1940: The Alcoholic Foundation responded to Margaret D. of Seattle, Washington, who had written to them about her husband on February 11, nearly a month earlier. She would later play a role—though details are scarce—in the establishment of Seattle’s first A.A. group.

1942: In a letter to the Adjutant General of the U.S. Army, Bill W. requested a commission “as a procurement or quartermaster officer, or to engage in some form of intelligence or morale work.” Bill [left] cited his service “in the World War [I] as an artillery officer” and his employment from 1920 to 1924 in “the insurance department of The New York Central Railroad” and at “The U.S. Fidelity & Guaranty Co.... as a criminal investigator.” He described his road travels from 1925 to 1930, often with Lois, as an independent field investigator “of large industrial companies, a role that, he detailed, demanded specific skills and knowledge and provided him with an “income [that] ranged from $5,000 to $20,000 [~$92,600–388,000 in 2026] annually.” Summarizing his pre-A.A. period, Bill noted, “From 1931 to 1934 my earning power was poor due to depression and other causes.”
    In 1934, his “interest in the cure of alcoholism... resulted in my becoming the founder of... Alcoholics Anonymous, which has since made possible the recovery of some 5000 cases of alcoholism of the most acute kind.” He predicted that A.A. “will probably clear up some 5000 new cases during the current year” and noted that A.A. was “nationally known through much newspaper and magazine publicity” and “enjoys the highest medical standing as well.” His added that his book, Alcoholics Anonymous, “earns him about $7000 [~$139,000 in 2026] annually.” He also noted, “In addition, I have handled the public relations of [A.A.]..., have done a very large amount of personal work with individuals, and am an experienced public speaker.”
    Finally, he provided four business references—Frank Shaw, Dick Johnson (of Greenshields & Co.), Clayton Quaw (of Quaw & Foley), and Rudolph Eberstadt—and two personal references: Willard Richardson and John Wood, the lawyer who had established the Alcoholic Foundation and both non-alcoholic Alcoholic Foundation Trustees.

1948: During the Nevada-Northern California A.A. Conference, the San Francisco Examiner published an interview [right] with Bill W. The article, titled “AA Founder Tells Effort To Rescue Young Drinkers,” was subtitled “Alcohol Addicts Must Have Real Desire To Help Selves, ‘Bill’ Says in S. F.”

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).

March 4 in A.A. History

1891: Lois Burnham was born to Dr. Clark and Matilda Hoyt Spelman Burnham [right: all three] at 182 Clinton Street, a spacious brownstone in the affluent Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. At the time of her birth, Brooklyn was a separate city, not becoming a borough of New York City until 1898.
    Lois was the eldest of six children, followed by Rogers, Barbara, Katherine (Kitty), Lyman, and Matilda. Sadly, Matilda, who was sickly after a difficult birth, died before her first birthday. Lois struggled to understand this loss, but her mother could only explain it as “God’s will.”
    Lois’s father was a prominent physician who maintained his medical office in a back room of their home. Her grandfather, Rev. Dr. Nathan Burnham, was a physician, lawyer, and minister in the Swedenborgian Church. Lois’s mother came from an old aristocratic family^*, and the Burnham household included a cook, a maid, and a man who tended the fires, made repairs, and cared for the horses and carriage.
    Every spring, the entire household followed Dr. Burnham’s patients to Vermont, where they lived beside Dorset Pond (now known as Emerald Lake). There, Lois was a tomboy, enjoying fishing, swimming, sailing, climbing trees, catching frogs, and picking berries on long morning walks. It was at Emerald Lake that Lois first met Bill Wilson, and where he began to woo her.
    The Burnhams’ summer cottage, which they called “the Camp,” was near Manchester and Manchester Center, Vermont, where many of Dr. Burnham’s patients spent their summers. The Burnhams were social acquaintances of Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln, whose family summered at Hildene, their estate in Manchester [left: Hildene, Lincoln’s estate]. Nearby Manchester Village represented “old” money. Dr. Burnham, a champion golfer, co-founded the exclusive Ekwanok Country Club in Manchester with Lincoln and likely played there with notable figures such as former President William Howard Taft and Henry Ford.
    Lois’s father ensured that all his children received the best possible education. Lois began her schooling with kindergarten, a new form of preschool education imported from Germany. She then attended Friends School and Packer Collegiate (an all-girls school) for grades one through twelve, developing into a brilliant and artistically talented woman. She would eventually become the wife of Bill Wilson and, along with her friend and neighbor Anne Bingham [right], a co-founder of Al-Anon.

---

^*Lieutenant Stephen Spelman (1745–1800) was the great-grandfather of Laura Spelman and the great-great-grandfather of Matilda Spelman. Laura married John D. Rockefeller Sr. and was the mother of John D. Rockefeller Jr. Matilda married Dr. Clark Burnham and had a daughter named Lois. This familial connection makes Matilda a third cousin of John D. Rockefeller Jr. (they share the same great-great-grandfather), and Lois his third cousin, once removed.

1941: Clarence S. [below left] wrote to Bill Wilson [below right, 1942], seeking help with what he termed a “revolution”: a movement to remove him as Chairman of the Cuyahoga County A/A [sic] Committee, which had been formed only two days earlier. The Cleveland members, it seems, were still upset about the articles published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in the fall of 1940, which they thought Clarence had secretly arranged. At about the same time, a number of Cleveland members who objected to the Alcoholic Foundation’s call for contributions and refused to support the New York office.
    Clarence’s ego had clearly been wounded, as evidenced by what he wrote:

    They wanted to know how much the Plain Dealer pd. me. Why I didn’t put it in the kitty. Where did I get the authority etc. etc. etc. Not one kind thing said in my behalf. This from persons I had picked out of the gutter & worked on & gave unceasingly & unselfishly of fellowship & whatever I could. Experience then, the resentment & hatred has been there. They have gone out of their way on numerous occasions to embarrass me.…
    [P]ay no attention to this so-called Cuyahoga County committee as yet. Continue to send me the names as always, & they will be followed & taken care of in a conscientious manner as always.
    About the [Alcoholic F]oundation money plan, don’t concern yourself about that here. I wish I had known about it before [Herbert] Bert Taylor blew in. After this revolution subsides, I can get you all the dough for the foundation that will be needed from our part of the country. And believe me when I tell you I can get it where no one else can.