September 7 in A.A. History

1939: Lois W. [near right] noted in her diary that Hank [P.] [far right] remained drunk.

1954: Alcoholics Anonymous in the U.K. reprinted the U.S./Canada first edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, marking the first such reprint outside the U.S. [left: U.K. Big Book 1st edition, 1st printing without dust jacket; below right: copyright page]. They would later do the same with the U.S./Canada second edition. The release of the third and fourth editions in the U.K. would coincide with their release in the U.S./Canada. All four U.K. versions contained the same stories as the U.S./Canada editions, although there was initial consideration of including uniquely British stories.

September in A.A. History—day unknown

1941: The first Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) group in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was held at the Biltmore Hotel [right, 1952].

A.A. in Oklahoma began with two men drying out at Oklahoma City’s Coyne Campbell Hospital [left, 1952], which was run by Dr. Coyne Campbell. This small, two-story facility on Walnut Street, located on the seedy east side of town, treated mental and nervous disorders. 

While there, they read Jack Alexander’s article, “Alcoholics Anonymous: Freed Slaves of Drink, Now They Free Others,” from the March 1941 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.

Upon their release, they—or perhaps one of their wives—sent a penny postcard to the Alcoholic Foundation office in New York City inquiring about meetings in Oklahoma. The office replied that there were no meetings yet, but someone would contact them. That someone turned out to be Johnny P., the candy salesman who founded A.A. in Kansas City, Missouri, and to whom the New York office forwarded their request.

On his next trip to Oklahoma, Johnny brought the message of A.A. to the two men. They then contacted others and held the first meeting of the Oklahoma City Group. By the end of the year, the group would have 11 members and be growing steadily. By 1942, they would reach 25 members; by 1944, 60.

1941: A month after the first Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) group in Colorado began in Denver on 19 August with 11 attendees, the group had grown to 16 members and moved to the Cosmopolitan Hotel [right, c. 1940].

Two factions threatened to split the group over whether newcomers should be required to follow rigid rules before joining. The dispute was resolved when Sarah McP. moved to Washington, D.C., and Venard F., who had played a key role in bringing A.A. to Denver, resigned as a group leader. However, this conflict led directly to the formation of a Denver Central Committee, which included Hugh McA., Art D., Ernie R., and Harold O.

1942: A small group of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) members in Hartford, Connecticut, who had been meeting in various homes, began holding a buffet supper meeting at the Blue Plate Restaurant in West Hartford [left: interior, recent]. Mr. and Mrs. Gengas, the restaurant owners, became intrigued by their unusual patrons and offered a banquet room as a regular meeting place on Monday nights. As a result, the original Hartford group became known as the Blue Plate Group.

1943: Bill W. [right, 1941] spoke at the first public meeting of the Blue Plate Group, the first A.A. group in Hartford, Connecticut, held to celebrate its first anniversary.

1944: Barely 11 months after its beginning, Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) in Iowa held its first State Convention at the swank Hotel Fort Des Moines [left, 1940s–50s] in Des Moines, Iowa. After a day of workshops, a buffet lunch, and afternoon tea for the wives, 150 people from all over Iowa and from Minneapolis, Minnesota; Chicago, Illinois; Omaha, Nebraska; and St. Paul, Minnesota attended the banquet. The convention was praised in the newspapers and on the radio.

September 6 in A.A. History

1939: Lois W. [near right] noted in her diary, “Hank [P.] [far right] drunk, phoned Bill in the afternoon.”

September in A.A. History—day unknown

1940: Earl T. [left] wrote to the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City to inform them that the A.A. members in Chicago, Illinois, were organizing a group and would hold regular meetings. He said, in part,

There are eight of us—with three new prospects who will go to Akron in the near future. Sylvia [K.] back in Evanston [Illinois] and anxious to help with the work here. Whether she has it yet is a question, but we will continue to work with her.

Sylvia [right] had recently left Akron, Ohio, and arrived in Chicago by train, drunk. In fact, she had sobered up for the last time on the day of her arrival, September 13, and would never drink again.

1940: Duke P.—who had gotten sober after reading newspaper accounts of Rollickin’ Rollie H.’s [left: in his Cleveland Indians uniform, c. 1940] recovery earlier that year—and other local members started the first A.A. group in Toledo, Ohio. In 1978, Duke recalled, there were thirteen attendees at Ruth T.’s big house on the Maumee River, including eight alcoholics. Among the attendees were Ernie G. [right] and his wife Ruth, who had just moved there from Akron, Ohio (one year later, Ernie would marry Dr. Bob S.’s adopted daughter Suzanne).

1940: Someone in Cleveland, Ohio, reported to Bill W. [left] at the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City that, in addition to their own six meetings and 400–500 members, Ohio had meetings in Akron, Toledo, Youngstown, Dayton, Wooster, and Canton. Dorothy Wright S. [near right] inquired about the possibility of a mimeographed directory “showing where people are,” and also suggested a newsletter to be sent to all groups to “bring everybody closer together.” Dorothy’s husband Clarence [far right] wrote to Bill, saying that “several groups do not permit a rummy to attend unless he has been hospitalized or talked to by ten men.” He noted that they have a “definite setup” with three hospitals and two sanitariums, and that they typically have 10–15 drunks hospitalized at any given time.

1940: In Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Group of A.A. made its first prison commitment at the House of Corrections [left, c. 1938]. This commitment continued until the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns began in 2020. (Note that this occurred before the first A.A. meetings at San Quentin Prison, initiated by Warden Duffy [right, c. 1943] in California, two years later.)

1941: Ernie G. married Sue, the adopted daughter of Anne and Dr. Bob S. [left: Ernie and Sue, 1957±3]. He was nearly twice her age. Sue later said,

I think my dad got the bright idea that if he could get Ernie to take me out, and he’d pay the way, he might be able to get me away from Ray [Windows, her then-boyfriend]. We’d go down and get hamburgers, and Dad would buy them. I knew all that, but I didn’t realize it was in connection with Ray at the time. Now I think it was. I think Dad was using Ernie, and it backfired on him.

Both her parents strongly objected to the idea of Sue’s marriage, and she never informed them of it, assuming they would learn about it from the local papers. Ernie was drunk at the wedding and remained unable to stay sober throughout the marriage. The marriage turned out to be a disaster, and Sue divorced Ernie in 1965 to marry Ray.

1941: Harper’s Magazine [right: cover, with white arrows indicating the relevant article] published the final installment of a four-part series titled “Laymen and Alcoholism,” by Genevieve Parkhurst^*, which primarily offered guidance for non-professionals, including family members, in dealing with alcoholics:

The layman’s burden I have indicated is not for the shoulders of the therapist alone. The family of the alcoholic—parents, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives—may very well be the deciding factor in the success or failure of his cure, just as they are often the chief contributors to the disturbance which causes the illness.… For their benefit I am setting down a list of things to be remembered…

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^*No known relation to the early A.A. member who shared the same last name.

September 5 in A.A. History

1907: Nancy F. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She would come to A.A. in New York City in June 1945 at the age of 38, and struggle to stop drinking. Her story, “The Independent Blonde,” would be published in the second edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. However, according to her later account, she was not the author and did not even know her story would appear in the Big Book.

1938: [Labor Day] Archibald “Archie” T. [left] arrived at Dr. Bob and Anne S.’s house [right: Bob and Anne on their porch] in Akron, Ohio, having had his last drink the day before. Sarah Klein and her husband had driven Archie down from Detroit. Bob admitted him to Akron City Hospital that day. Archie would later recall,

I spent Labor Day in the hospital reading Emmet Fox’s [The] Sermon on the Mount [left]. It changed my entire outlook on life. It changed my direction.

He would stay with the S.s for 10½ months before moving on to start A.A. in Detroit, Michigan. His story, “The Man Who Mastered Fear,” appeared in the first edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and was retitled “The Fearful One” in the second and third editions.

1939: Lois W. [near right] wrote in her diary, “Kathleen [P――] [far right] phoned to say she thought Hank [her husband] was drunk.”

1947: This is the “official” date of Brazil’s first A.A. group—in Rio de Janeiro [left: map showing Brazil and Rio de Janeiro]. The date was established as a tradition during a group meeting on 29 August 1950, around its third anniversary. While no one knows exactly how or when the Rio de Janeiro Group was formed, it is likely that Herbert “Herb” D., a sober American expatriate who had been living there since 1946, played some role in its creation.

September in A.A. History—day unknown

1939: Prior to the September 30 publication of an article about A.A. in Liberty magazine, which would be A.A.’s first national publicity, Bill W. [far left] wrote to Dr. Bob S. [near left]:

We are growing at an alarming rate, although I have no further fear of large numbers.

Bill’s concern arose from the recent sudden expansion to thirty groups and several hundred members in Cleveland, Ohio. This rapid growth demonstrated that the Fellowship could reach a significant size. A few weeks later, Bill wrote to Dr. Bob again:

The press of newcomers and inquiries was so great that we have to [sic] swing more to the take-it-or-leave-it attitude, which curiously enough, produces better results than trying to be all things at all times at all places to all men.

1939: Dr. Bob S. [above, near left] wrote to Bill W. [above, far left] at this time regarding the mutual support between the Akron and Cleveland A.A. groups in Ohio, saying that he had…

attended a meeting of the Cleveland gang, as I do once or twice a month, and enjoyed a wonderful gathering. Think they have about 38 in their bunch now—refer to men only. Our [Oxford Group] meetings still have 75 or 80 every week, including both men and women.

At this time, some members from Akron were attending meetings in Cleveland, while others from Cleveland were attending meetings in Akron.

1939: Mort J. [right], a resident of Denver, Colorado, bought a copy of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. Without even looking at it, he packed it in his suitcase and forgot about it. In November, after coming to in Palm Springs, California, following a weeks-long international spree—still shaking violently—he found and began to read it. He would never drink again, and would eventually help reestablish A.A. in Los Angeles, California.

September 4 in A.A. History

1897: John S. [left: as a young man] was born in Houlton, Maine, to Rev. Richard and Kate Bolton S.

In the mid-1930s, he became an oil tanker captain [right: "Socony Vacuum," an oil tanker from Captain Jack's era (1934–54)]. In 1946, he got sober in Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), where he was known as “Captain Jack.” He would play a crucial role in establishing the Loners Internationalists Meeting and its confidential bulletin, a meeting-in-print for “Loners,” “Homers,” “Internationalists,” “Port Contacts” (who serve as contacts for Internationalists visiting their port city), and “Loner Sponsors.” He and hundreds of Internationalists like him, who sailed the seven seas, would carry the A.A. message wherever they dropped anchor, significantly contributing to A.A.’s phenomenal worldwide growth.

September in A.A. History—day unknown

1936: William “Bill” V. [near right] got sober in Akron, Ohio. He was one of five men whom Sister Ignatia [far right] recalled coming to the hospital after suffering terrible accidents due to drinking, all five of whom later became A.A. members. His story, “A Ward of the Probate Court,” was published in the first edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. In 1954, he recalled his first impression of Dr. Bob S. [far left], which occurred while he was still in the hospital:

I just lay there and enjoyed the conversation. He’d come every day. He said, “Of myself I am nothing.” I try to have some humility such as I saw in him and Annie. Their doorlatch was always open, and there was always a large pot of coffee back there in their small kitchen [near left]. And it was really potent, as any will remember who enjoyed it.

1938: Alcoholic Foundation Trustee Frank Amos [far left] arranged a meeting between Bill W. [near right] and Eugene Exman [far right], a friend of Amos and the religious editor of Harper Brothers Publishers. Exman offered Bill a $1,500 advance [~$35,500 in 2026] on the royalties from the sales of the book that would become Alcoholics Anonymous.

Upon hearing this, the Alcoholic Foundation Board of Trustees would urge acceptance, but Bill and Hank P. [left] wanted book ownership to remain within the Fellowship. At Exman’s suggestion, Hank would persuade Bill that they should form “One Hundred Men Corp.,” which, when women began seeking sobriety in A.A., became “Works Publishing, Inc.,” later “Alcoholics Anonymous Publishing,” and eventually “Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.” (AAWS), the name that remains today. They planned to sell stock at a par value of $25 [~$590 in 2026]. Six hundred shares would be issued; Hank and Bill would each receive 200 shares, and the remaining 200 shares would be sold to others. Later, thirty shares of preferred stock with a par value of $100 [~$2,400 in 2026] would also be sold.

Eventually, all of these shares would be bought back by the Alcoholic Foundation, with a loan from John D. Rockefeller [right]—except for Bill’s and Hank’s, which would essentially^* be relinquished without compensation. To appease the board, the author’s royalties, which would initially go to Bill, would instead go to the Alcoholic Foundation.

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^*Hank insisted on getting back the Alcoholic Foundation furniture he believed had come from Honors Dealers, but for which Bill claimed they had already compensated him. They eventually gave Hank $200 [~$4,700 in 2026].

1939: Your Faith magazine [left: cover with red arrows pointing to the relevant article] published D. J. Defoe’s interview with Dr. Bob S. (who is not named), titled “I Saw Religion Remake a Drunkard.”

September 3 in A.A. History

1905: Felicia G. [left, with her mother] was born in Narvosielica, in present-day Ukraine. Her father, the fortune-hunting Polish Count Józef G., was a hard-drinking womanizer with a bankrupt estate in Russian Poland. Her mother, Eleanor Medill Patterson, was a Chicago-born newspaper heiress and the granddaughter of Joseph Medill, founder of The Chicago Tribune. Felicia would come to Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) in 1943, relapse briefly during her first year, and have her last drink in 1944. Marty M. served as her sponsor. Her story, “Stars Don’t Fall,” appears in the 2nd and 3rd editions of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

1923: The U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce published “The German coal-tar chemical industry: production, export, and import statistics” [far right] by Dr. Frederick B. [near right, 1923], American trade commissioner to Germany.

1927: After receiving a letter from Frank Shaw of J. K. Rice & Co. inquiring about rumors of his drinking again, Bill W. replied. He was researching the Cuban sugar industry [below: cutting sugar cane on a Cuban plantation] for Frank while staying at the luxurious Hotel Sevilla in Havana, Cuba. Bill wrote and promised that he and Lois were “going to move to another place which will be more reasonable and which from now on will answer our purpose just as well.” However, Lois later recalled that they never left the Sevilla. Bill’s letter continued:

Thank you for your remittance and your letter which followed. Now a few lines for your eyes alone. I have never said anything to you about the liquor question, but now that you mention it and also for the good reason that you are investing your perfectly good money in me, I am at last very happy to say that I have had a final showdown (with myself) on the matter. It has always been a serious handicap to me, so that you appreciate how glad I am to be finally rid of it. It got to the point where I had to decide whether to be a monkey or a man. I know it is going to be a tough job, but nevertheless the best thing I ever did for myself and everybody concerned. That is that, so let us now forget about it.

Later, Lois would write that Bill drank the entire time they were in Cuba.

1930: After being fired in the fall by his “good friend” Dick Johnson (who had given him a job in Montreal, as mentioned in “Bill’s Story” on p. 4 of Alcoholics Anonymous: “Next morning I telephoned a friend in Montreal…”), Bill Wilson wrote a pledge in the family Bible to Lois to stop drinking: “Finally and for a lifetime, thank God for your love.” This would be the fourth and final pledge he wrote there [right], but I was on deck the next day, pretty much of a wreck, but I was there to start to Akron. Following this, in despair, he would refrain from making any further promises, at least in their Bible.

1938: [Possibly the 4th] Archie T. [left], who had been homeless until he moved in with his “unsuspecting” friend, Ralph, was facing the prospect of having to leave:

Something went wrong with my drinking schedule on the 3rd of September, on a Friday^* night. Instead of getting drunk in the morning and being asleep in the afternoon and being out and getting drunk in the evening and coming home after Ralph went to bed, I got tangled up somewhere and found myself at home in bed at at [sic] ten o’clock at night and he was home too. The time was drawing near when his family were [sic] returning from their vacation and I was going to have to get out of there and incapable of finding myself a room because I couldn’t stay sober long enough to face a perspective [sic] landlady and I had no money with which to pay room rent although in that marvelous alcoholic way, I always had money to drink with. Now don’t ask me to explain that. I lay in bed thinking about approaching him, and thought, “No, he’s been very good to me, he’s done a great deal for me in the past. I don’t want to bother him. I don’t want to bother anybody anymore.”

If I can’t find a solution to this problem by next Monday, this was Labor Day weekend, I’ll put an end to everything. But I finally concluded that before I did anything like that I’d better go in and talk to him. I went in with nothing on my mind for the solutions to my problems except to ask him if he would lend me $50. He got out of bed, where he’d been reading, and walked up and down the floor and said: “You don’t need $50, you need a great deal more than that.” Well, I agreed with him on that. But he said “You need a new lease on life, a new interest. I can’t give you those things, but I know someone who might.” He asked me if I’d be willing to go and talk to this woman [Sarah Klein^†]. I knew her very slightly, and I said, “Yes”. Because I would have said yes to anything or anybody who might have some answers for me because I no longer had answers for anything. So he grabbed the telephone and started to make a date for me for the next day and I started to back water [sic]. But it was too late and he made an appointment for me to see this woman the next day.

At four o’clock in the afternoon! [sic] He took me out, bought me some drinks, brought me home, and put me to bed. And I lay there somewhat quieted by the drinks and I wondered how I was going to keep an appointment at four o’clock in the afternoon. And be reasonably sober! And I finally hit on a marvelous solution. I would get up a little earlier than usual and make an effort to get drunk faster. So that I would come home knowing my own habits and sleep off the first of the day’s drinks and then go straight over and see her to keep this appointment. I did these things and they worked out that way.

I don’t know when I had my last drink. It was on Saturday morning on the third of September before Labor Day in 1938. What time of day it was in the morning I don’t know. I blanked out. I got in this car 25 minutes after six. At about half-past seven is the latest my memory serves me. What time I left there and went home and passed out I don’t know. I saw this woman, and to be brief, she offered me a chance to go down to Akron and to meet some men who had found a solution to their problem which was my problem. She offered to take me, she and her husband offered to take me there, and to do it the next day if I were willing to go. She however insisted that I make up my own mind about it, perfectly freely and without any pressure from her. This took me quite a while. I spent a long time in her house sitting there thinking about it.

I finally made the decision. I left her house with the full intention of hurrying as fast as my car would take me to the nearest saloon in getting a drink. Half way [sic] to the saloon something stopped me. I can’t tell you what it was. I know what I think it was. Today I’m sure of what it was. I’m sure that her prayers, which were all that were left to her, to do after she let go of me, that her prayers did that. However, I went home and went to bed after 18 days of continuous drinking I went home and went to bed and sweated it out all night. I don’t need to describe that part of it to you. It makes me shutter [sic] to think of it and it would make all you to [sic] shutter [sic], but I was on deck the next day, pretty much of a wreck, but I was there to start to Akron.

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^*The first Friday of September 1938 fell on the 2nd.

^†Sarah Klein [right] was referred to as “The Angel of AA” for her role in helping Archie establish AA meetings in Detroit and for her dedicated service in conveying the AA message to other alcoholics, particularly those in hospitals and prisons.

1940: The Wichita Beacon (Kansas) published an article [left] titled “Wichita Will Have Chapter Of ‘Alcoholics Anonymous.’” An unnamed hospitalized Wichitan said that “he has contacted numerous of Wichita’s habitual drunkards and during this week will seek them out to enroll them in the organization.” The article ended by noting, “In telling the story of the A.A. who began the organization, the Wichitan illustrated the fundamental help to alcoholics—religion.” (It was in Wichita, Kansas, on 27 December 1900, that Carrie A. Nation [right] first began using a hatchet—rather than the rocks and bricks she had previously used—against saloons.)