September 13 in A.A. History

In 1937 [March 1937? March 1938?], Florence R. of Westfield, New Jersey, became the first woman to get sober in the New York City A.A. group and the second to do so anywhere. 

    She was the ex-wife of a man Bill W. knew from Wall Street and had divorced him, thinking that this would eliminate the cause of her drinking. She ended up in Bellevue Hospital [right, c. late 1930s], where her ex-husband took Lois W. to see her. Bill and Lois got her out of Bellevue, and she stayed with them for a while before moving in with other A.A. members, and with Ruth Hock. She began attending meetings in March 1937 but struggled with maintaining her sobriety. Because of her, the name “One Hundred Men” would be discarded for the Big Book and the publishing company of the same name.
    After she got sober, her story, “A Feminine Victory,” was included in the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous. In writing it, she said, she prayed for inspiration to tell her story in a way that would encourage other women to seek the help she had received.

In 1939, according to index cards of members maintained by the Central Office in Chicago, Illinois, Sylvia K. [left] had sobered up on this date.
    Her doctor, Seth Brown from Evanston, Illinois, had somehow learned about the new book, Alcoholics Anonymous, despite the lack of publicity at that time. He read it and called Sylvia, who would later say, “That call marked the turning point in my life.”
    She is widely regarded as the first woman to achieve permanent sobriety and would play a crucial role in founding A.A. in Chicago. Her story, “Keys to the Kingdom,” appeared in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions of Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 1941, WHJP in Jacksonville, Florida, aired “Spotlight on A.A.,” the first ever radio series about Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 1946, Bob H., Mr. P., and Bill W., all members of the Richmond (Virginia) Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, presented a program about the Fellowship at the Rotary Club. According to a September 19 article titled “Alcoholics Anonymous Put On Rotary Program” [right] published by the Rappahannock Record of Kilmarnock, Virginia, Bob “told about the organization and the work it is doing across the country,” while Mr. Philips and Bill…

    gave personal experiences of their lives as alcoholics, telling how they had lost their business, friends and everything they had as drunks in the gutter before starting life anew as members of Alcoholics Anonymous.… Alcoholics Anonymous is composed of alcoholics who have voluntarily joined the organization and have overcome the curse of drink. The speakers said that about 75% those who join stay with the organization and never take another drink thus becoming useful citizens of society again.

In 1952, Hector G. was admitted to a clinic in Buenos Aires, [left: location of Argentina, showing Buenos Aires] for serious alcoholism. There, he was treated by Dr. Roberto 
Pochat, an Argentine physician who had recently returned from the United States, where he completed a course on alcoholism at Yale University. Additionally, Dr. Pochat had been in contact with many members of Alcoholics Anonymous in the U.S., who had explained A.A. methods to him in great detail and facilitated his attendance at numerous meetings.
    During Hector’s hospitalization, Dr. Pochat had him read A.A. pamphlets and the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous (in English), and suggested that he seek help from the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City after his discharge.

In 1969, Leonard V. Harrison [right], 77, died at his home. He had been Chairman of the Alcoholic Foundation Board of Trustees from March 1942 to October 1950 and from April 1956 to April 1961. He had also served as Commissioner of Welfare for New York City and was a director of the Community Service Society of New York [City].

September 12 in A.A. History

	In 1941, Robert Shaw, 70, died of a heart attack in his car in the driveway of his home [left: home; near right: obituary; far right: grave] in Long Beach, New York.
A friend of Willard Richardson, he joined the Alcoholic Foundation Board of Trustees in December 1939 as its third Chairman, becoming the first Class A Trustee to hold that position.     Together with his father, William Walden Shaw, he had founded the Dake Bakery Company in Chicago, Illinois, where he was born. This bakery was one of 40 acquired by Adolphus Green in 1890 to form the American Biscuit and Manufacturing Company. In 1898, this company merged with William H. Moore’s New York Biscuit Company and John Gottlieb Zeller’s Richmond Steam Bakery to create the National Biscuit Company, which later became known as Nabisco. Shaw retired in 1914 while still in his 40s.

	In 1942, U.S. Assistant Surgeon General Dr. Lawrence Kolb [left] spoke at a dinner honoring Bill W. and Dr. Bob S. The following month, Bill would inscribe Kolb’s copy of Alcoholics Anonymous with the words, “To Dr. Lawrence Kolb / In grateful appreciation of his friendship / Bill Wilson” [right]. At the 10th General Service Conference in 1960, Bill would express his thoughts about Kolb:
Old Fitz Mayo, one of the early AA’s and I visited the Surgeon General of the United States in the third year of this society and told him of our beginnings.      He was a gentle man, Dr. Lawrence Kolb, and has since become a great friend of AA. He said, “I wish you well. Even the sobriety of a few is almost a miracle. The government knows that this is one of the greatest health problems but we have considered the recovery of alcoholics so impossible that we have given up and have instead concluded that rehabilitation of narcotic addicts would be the easier job to tackle.

In 1946, a dispute arose over a funding solicitation from the National Council for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA). The solicitation was written by Marty M. and printed on NCEA letterhead, which included the full names of Alcoholics Anonymous’ co-founders, Dr. Bob S. and Bill W.

    Marty had founded the NCEA with the support both co-founders. In her role at the NCEA, she regularly broke her anonymity. Initially, Bill thought thought this was acceptable, and Marty spoke extensively about Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) during her continual lectures across the country. This was prior to publication of the Traditions. Even so, many A.A. members feared the inclusion of the co-founders’ names on NCEA letterhead might be taken to imply a connection between A.A. and NCEA. In response, the Alcoholic Foundation would publish both a letter and an article [right] in the October A.A. Grapevine denying any affiliation between A.A. and the NCEA. This incident contributed to the widespread feeling that “total non-affiliation was the only solution” to A.A.’s relationship with other organizations.

September 11 in A.A. History

In 1915, Bill W. and Lois Burnham [left, 1915] were secretly engaged.

In 2001, the Underwood Building at 30 Vesey St. [near right, c. 1940; far right, c. 2009] in Manhattan was damaged, but not destroyed, in the attack on the World Trade Center by Islamist terrorists.

    From 1940 to 1944, it served as the first headquarters of the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City. Built in 1911 by John Thomas Underwood, the building originally housed the Underwood Typewriter Company [left: advertisement, c. 1911]. In 2008, it sold for nearly $15,000,000 [~$22,500,000 in 2025].

In 2001, Father Mychal Fallon Judge [right], 68, died in the World Trade Center attack while serving as a chaplain for the New York City Fire Department. He was a Catholic priest who was very supportive of the gay community and an American Franciscan friar. Although others died before him that day, he would be designated as Victim 0001, the first official fatality of the attack, because his body was the first to be recovered and taken to the medical examiner. He had gotten sober on 15 September 1978, and his funeral Mass would be held on his 23rd sobriety anniversary at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Manhattan.

September 10 in A.A. History

	In 1948, the Berea Group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Berea, Ohio [~12.4 mi, ~20.0 km SW of Cleveland], celebrated its 8th anniversary with Clarence S. as the main speaker [left: CD recording of his talk]. Its first meeting was on Friday, 23 August 1940, and the group continues to meet today [right: meeting place, St. Thomas Episcopal Church].

September 9 in A.A. History

In 1925, Melvin “Mel” B. [right, c. WWII] was born in Norfolk, Nebraska, the eldest son and middle child of three children of Bertha Swisher and Learner B.
    One of his schoolmates would be Johnny Carson, the longtime host of The Tonight Show. Mel would sober up in 1950 and become a prolific writer, freelancing for Ohio’s The Toledo Blade and authoring numerous books and articles. Writing as “Mel B.,” he would contribute dozens of articles to the A.A. Grapevine and publish several recovery- and A.A.-related books. Additionally, he would serve as the primary author, without attribution, of Pass It On, the General Service Conference-approved biography of Bill W.

In 1933, William “Bill” B. [left, with Lois W.] was born in Brooklyn, New York, the only child of William and Ruth McLintock B. 
    He would get sober on 8 Apr 1962; become a close friend of Lois W.’s for the last 16 years of her life; author The Lois Wilson Story: When Love is Not Enough (2005), along with 24 other titles; co-write the screenplay for the movie of the same name (2010); write the screenplay for and act (in the role of “Wade”) in My Name Is Bill W. (1989); produce a number of films, including Dog Day Afternoon, Kansas City Bomber and Serpico; serve as a Stepping Stones volunteer for a half century, and sit on the Stepping Stones Foundation Board of Trustees (1997–2006).

In 1935, Ernest “Ernie” K. [right] was born in Rochester, New York—just three months after A.A. was founded. He was the oldest of two children of Edward and Josephine Kurzejewski (Koo-zhay-yev’-ski). In 2009, he would reflect back on his surname:

    Eight years of grammar school in a German parish shortened that name for practical use, and when I began graduate school bringing transcripts in two names, I was advised to choose one. Tired of too-lengthy phone interactions, I opted for the one that was easier to spell. But I do remain proud of my Polish heritage and advertise it whenever appropriate.

    In 1979, Hazelden Educational Services would publish Ernie’s Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, a revised and expanded version of his 1978 Harvard University dissertation. He would go on to write at least six more books, along with numerous monographs and articles on the intellectual significance of A.A., recovery, and spirituality.

	In 1936, Lois W.’s father, Dr. Clark Burnham [left], age 81, or possibly 80, died of pneumonia at Mount Vernon Hospital in Mount Vernon, New York [right, New York Times obituary]. He had graduated with honors from Franklin and Marshall College and studied medicine at the Hahnemann School of Medicine in Pennsylvania, specializing in gynecology. After his death, the Burnham family home at 182 Clinton St., Brooklyn, would be taken over by the mortgage company, allowing Lois and Bill to live there at a reduced rent (due to rent controls in the depressed housing market) until 1939.

September 8 in A.A. History

In 1894, James D. “J.D.” H. [right] was born in Groves County, Kentucky. He would become A.A. #10 (some sources say #8 or #17) in September 1936 and go on to be a founder of A.A. in Indiana.

September 7 in A.A. History

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

In 1954, A.A. 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. [far left: U.K. Big Book 1st edition, 1st printing with dust jacket; near left: 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 6 in A.A. History

	In 1939, Lois W. [left, late 1930s?] noted in her diary, “Hank [P.] [right] drunk, phoned Bill in the afternoon.”

September 5 in A.A. History

In 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.

	In 1938, [Labor Day] Archie T. [left] arrived at Dr. Bob and Anne S.’s house [left: 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 [right]. It changed my entire outlook on life. It changed my direction.

He would stay with the Smiths 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.

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

In 1947, this is the “official” date of Brazil’s first A.A. group in Rio de Janeiro [right, Brazil with location of Rio de Janeiro marked], established by a tradition during a group meeting on 29 August 1950, around their third anniversary. While no one knows exactly how or when the Rio de Janeiro Group was formed, it is likely that Herbert “Herb” L. Daugherty, a sober American expatriate who had been living there since 1946, played some role in its creation.

September 4 in A.A. History

In 1897, John S. [right: as a young man] was born in Houlton, Maine, to Rev. Richard and Kate Bolton S.
    In the mid-1930s, he would become an oil tanker captain. In 1946, would get 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 3 in A.A. History

In 1905, Felicia G. [right, with her mother] was born in Narvosielica, in present-day Ukraine. Her father was a hard-drinking womanizer with a bankrupt estate in Russian Poland, the fortune-hunting Polish Count Józef G. 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. became her sponsor. Her story, “Stars Don’t Fall,” appears in the 2nd and 3rd editions of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 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 [left: cutting sugar cane on a Cuban plantation] for Frank while staying at the luxurious Hotel Sevilla in Havana, Cuba. Bill 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.

In 1930, after being fired in the fall by his “good friend” Dick Johnson, who had given him a job in Montreal—mentioned in his Big Book story on p. 4: “Next morning I telephoned a friend in Montreal…”—Bill W. wrote a pledge to Lois to stop drinking in the family Bible: “Finally and for a lifetime, thank God for your love.” This would be the fourth and final pledge he wrote there [right]. Following this, in despair, he would refrain from making any further promises, at least in their Bible.

In 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 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]

---

*The first Friday of September 1938 fell on the 2nd.
^†Sarah Klein [right] was known as “The Angel of AA” for her role in helping Archie establish A.A. meetings in Detroit and for her dedication in carrying the A.A. message to alcoholics, particularly n hospitals and prisons.

In 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 Carry A. Nation [right] first began using a hatchet—rather than the rocks and bricks she had previously used—against saloons.) 

September 2 in A.A. History

	In 1977, the three-day 20th International Conference of Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous (ICYPAA) began at the Shamrock Hilton [left] in Houston, Texas. The theme of the conference was “Sharing Everyone’s Recovery” [right: flyer/registration form; below: conference memorabilia].

September 1 in A.A. History

	In 1939, “Earl T―and the Earlytimers” met* in Evanston, Illinois, forming the first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the Chicago area. This meeting took place in the apartment of Earl [left] and his wife, Katie**, at 1324 Central St. [right].

	Eight† people attended: Earl, Katie, Dick R., Ken A., Sadie I., Sylvia K. [left], George M., and a non-alcoholic, Grace Cultice [right, 1951], who would later become the secretary of the group and be known as “The Angel of Chicago A.A.”

^*One source notes that the meeting occurred on “a Tuesday night in September,” suggesting the 5th, 12th, 19th, or 26th, while others indicate the 13th, 20th, or 21st.
^**Other sources claim the meeting was held “at Sylvia Kauffman’s apartment on Central Street.”
^†There are discrepancies regarding attendance; one source states there were “six brand-new A.A.s and three non-alcoholic spouses,” while another reports that “eight people were present, four men and four women, two of whom were non-alcoholics.”

In 1954, Bill W. began dictating “the story of myself and the story of AA from true recollection only” to Ed B. at the Hotel Bedford [right], 118 E. 40th St. in Manhattan. Bill also said,

    [I]t is my purpose to start in with childhood recollections bearing upon my background and ancestry and the events of that time as they related primarily to my personality structure and the defects in it, which no doubt laid the groundwork for my alcoholism.…
    I have always been intensely averse to anything autobiographical being done in print. Indeed, I have always been very much against a biography of any sort, due to our studied policy of playing the founding of this movement down, for as people in it know, this is a society which can function peculiarly well without too much sanction from the top. Of course, I realize that someday biographies may be written, and there is no legal means of preventing them. Therefore the early part of this narrative is intended to set the record somewhere near straight, and for this immediate purpose I will just try to hit a few highlights in the sketch to follow.

	A transcript of this recording led to the publication of Bill W.: My First 40 Years [left: 3rd edition cover] by Hazelden in 2000. The first printing consisted of only 2,500 copies, making it somewhat rare. It also served as the foundation for the first section of Robert Thomsen’s Bill W. [right: 1st edition cover], first published in 1975.