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.