Aa history Lovers 2006 moderators Nancy Olson and Glenn F. Chesnut page
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several years and the chance to meet him in person (as well as the others) was a personally fulfilling experience since we both shared a friendship with Nancy Olson [who founded the AAHistoryLovers].
by "Shaky Mike" Gwirtz from the Philadelphia area and a fellow named "BJ' concerning Fitz Mayo and Jim Burwell who were responsible for getting AA going in eastern PA and MD.
sharing from an old-timer, Chet H., who didn't want to be taped.
for an army! Personally, I was almost overwhelmed with the entire event and it's hard to "whelm" me! Al Welch IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3709. . . . . . . . . . . . 2005 Brown University Visit From: greatcir@comcast.net> . . . . . . . . . . . . 9/17/2006 8:06:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Brown University visit October, 2005. http://library.brown.edu/search/?searchtype=Xandsearcharg=clarence+sny derandsearchsc\ ope=7andSORT=Aandextended=0andSUBMIT=Searchandsearchlimits=andsear chorigarg=Xalcohol [12] might be a starting point for some of the materials as it looks like the links I
used in early 2005 have changed.. I spent the better part of the week of Oct. 3, 2005 at Brown University in the
John Hay Library reading and looking at AA materials. I went quickly through about 10 large cardboard boxes. Three were related to Dr. Bob and the rest to Clarence Snyder. There were a couple of other boxes - one had the Akron coffee pot in it and the other one some of Dr. Bob's medical items, his wallet with a social security card in it, a baseball signed by Hemsley, and a 1950 folder showing how to form a group. I did not have time to look at the Marty Mann boxes
or listen to any of the tapes in the Clarence boxes. Some of the boxes had plastic bags full of correspondence and miscelaneous material not yet catalogued. One man at the library thought Sue sold many of these boxes to Brown
U. for a sum in the $100,000 range? Access to the library was no problem. I think once I listed myself as a AA member (I have no other archive credentials) they did not know what to do as the other researchers there were mostly academics writing papers or books. I could only take a pencil and pad in and I had to sign a number of forms to get a copy of one letter (July 7, 1944 about royalties with Clarence's hand written notes in the margins) from GSO to Clarence. Parking is very tough with meters taking a quarter every 15 minutes if one could
find a parking space. It takes them 24 hours to get an archive box, but as I had
contacted them before I went, they had three boxes ready for me on Monday when
I arrived. After I filled out some paperwork and left a photo ID card, as I had
to each day, I then had access to one file at a time out of one box at a time.
They have TV monitors in all the rooms and I could see some very old valuable
books on non-AA matters. http://dl.lib.brown.edu/temperance/ is a site that deals with the temperance pamphlets and they are moving to have more web access to such materials in the future.
primary contact was Tovah Reis. Library personnel indicated no real interest in AA and told me that if someone was interested say in posters or phamplets on alcoholism, then it was their intention to have all availabe materials on the
subject from a wide variety of sources with AA only being one of those sources.
I asked if they might consider revising their web site description of the Akron
coffee pot as the "Holy Grail of AA" amd was amswered with a no. Below are some random observations. I enjoyed the rifts and details over book royalties - Sue asking for Dr. Bob's
royalties; Clarence blasting away over Bill's payments; the request for royalties on Living Sober by Barry Leach on March 7, 1982 for $191,416.54 ; Bill receiving a royalty check for $585.70 on 9/30/43 ; Bill not having a royalty agreement until 1963; etc. As I suspected there was little on Dr. Bob which was really the personal purpose
of my trip. He did have a celebration put on by others on his 8th year in AA in 1943 which was a grand party for 500 with a 10 piece orchestra, dancing, and cards. I got a real feel for Anne in the materials. She would say "would you like to go all the way with God?" Then she would ask them to kneel and surrender their
husband to God. She organized a women's group in 1936. She said to surrender your thoughts, possessions, emotions, relationships, and tongue. Clarence blasted NY for permitting a 2nd AA group to be formed in Little Rock
saying it could kill AA. Some non-alcoholics formed a group. Hank blistered Clarence for not selling enough porcelain materials (they were in a ceramic mold business?) because he was "messed up" with AA. There was a Camp in Georgian Bay in the Great Lakes for alcoholics to vacation. A funny telegram on 4/22/40 to GSO said "Please send Rollie Hemsley here
immediately 279 East 149 Street" and it had no city listed. A letter saying "Our group has some money and is trying to decide what to do
with it." dated 7/20/44. They asked for a discount on books. I'll end with a last unknown source quote "Excessive users of alcohol frequently come from families of poor hereditary stock."
restrictions on reprinting? From: John Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . 9/17/2006 1:03:00 PM
Carolina has deleted several readings "by request of AA World Services." Sounds like AAWS is policing the Internet, similar to last year's attack on E-Bay users who were selling AA related literature. john lee pittsburgh --- "Mitchell K." wrote:
> that AAWS is pulling > permission to reprint anything they "own." Grapevine > articles, writing > by Bill etc. He said that AAWS alone from now on > will be the sole > source of anything related to AA. > > Anyone hear of this? > > > > > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3711. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: Clarence did not write program for 1st Internat''l Conf. From: ArtSheehan . . . . . . . . . . . . 9/17/2006 10:53:00 PM
contradicts a number of your assertions. My e-mail statement was "This was all part of Clarence Snyder's claim that the Cleveland Group was the first to use the term 'Alcoholics Anonymous' to describe itself." I made no mention of Clarence writing the program which described Cleveland as "the birthplace of our movement." I simply posited and implied that he had influenced it as part of his claim to primacy of the term "Alcoholics Anonymous." I certainly could be wrong if the program description referred to the state of Ohio in which case it would be quite correct. Your assertion that "Ergo...Clarence was the founder of AA (not Alcoholics Anonymous but the term AA)" strikes me as a form of semantic gymnastics that does little more than elevate the obscure to the level of the irrelevant. You also selectively ignore your own book "How It Worked" which credits the primacy of both the terms "Alcoholics Anonymous" and "A.A." to Clarence S. Your claim of Clarence being the "founder" of the term "AA." is
sustained by anecdote (known only to you and attributed to Nell Wing) as "evidence." You then bemoan that there is no "evidence or documentation" to sustain whether Clarence claimed to be the first to use the term "Alcoholics Anonymous" to describe the group he founded. You are quite wrong on the latter assertion and quite weak on the former.
founder of AA in Cleveland and a number of other noteworthy accomplishments. However, portraying him as the "founder of AA" (whether "AA" is an acronym, initials, abbreviation, Fellowship, group or a meeting or whatever) is obfuscation no matter how you may wish to micro-parse or selectively describe the term. It also strikes me as a bit silly. Are the history books supposed to note separate, as you call it, "founders" of the terms "Alcoholics Anonymous group" vs "AA group" or "Alcoholics Anonymous meeting" vs "AA meeting" or "Alcoholics Anonymous literature" vs "AA literature" or "Alcoholics Anonymous member" vs "AA member" ad absurdum.
anointed pedestal. Clarence had well documented strengths and shortcomings. I acknowledge both. If that constitutes "resentments, being closed minded and misquoting" then so be it. Perhaps your hyper-sensitivity and bias to anything you deem even remotely critical of Clarence might be due to him being your past sponsor and your inflated veneration of him as demonstrated in your book. Extant documents unambiguously describes Clarence S as confrontational and antagonistic. The legacy of those unremarkable traits of Clarence's seem to have regrettably been passed on to you in the way you all-too-often express yourself in this forum. In addition to his documented antagonistic nature Clarence also touted himself to be the "founder" or "father" of AA. Documented proof is cited later below In your email message, you assert that:(some portions excised): "Clarence also never claimed that the Goldrick Group was the first to use the TERM Alcoholics Anonymous to describe itself. There is NO evidence or documentation ... showing where gatherings of members of the Fellowship called these meetings Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Clarence called the meeting itself an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting after the book of the same name - he wasn't referring to the Fellowship or the book or the foundation but specifically the MEETING. NOWHERE in the archives ... is there a reference to holding an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where a bunch of members met to share their experience, strength and hope. You are essentially using the terms "group" and "meeting" synonymously and then trying to draw some major distinction between the two. It doesn't make very much sense other than to manufacture some title for Clarence and strikes me as intellectually dishonest. Let's begin with your book (I'm using the PDF file version) where on pg 140 you wrote (seperate paragraphs are joined by ellipses):
Group meeting at T. Henry and Clarace Williams' home. At the end of the meeting, Clarence announced that this would be 'the last time the Cleveland contingent would be down to the Oxford Group as a whole. . He announced the Cleveland Group was going to meet the following night, May 11th. He said, 'We're gonna start our own group in Cleveland.' He told the Akron fellowship, 'This is not gonna be an Oxford Group. It's gonna be known as Alcoholics Anonymous. We're taking the name from the book; and only alcoholics and their families are welcome. Nobody else.' He then told all present where [the new group - the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting - was going to meet.] Clarence announced 'We're gonna meet at 2345 Stillman Road, Cleveland Heights at Al and Grace G.'s home.' ."
meeting was held. It was a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was a meeting held by, and for alcoholics and their families only. Historian, Mary C. Darrah, wrote: . 'In the years 1935-1939, the Oxford meetings provided a group experience for the early alcoholics. A.A. did not meet as a separate group officially named Alcoholics Anonymous until May 1939 at the home of Abby G. in Cleveland.' . Nell Wing 26 stated in an interview with the author: 'Clarence was rightly the first to use the initials, A.A.' She was, however, referring to Clarence's use of the initials 'A.A.' and not to his use of the name Alcoholics Anonymous. . A fellowship of anonymous drunks had in fact existed prior to May 11, 1939. But it was the Cleveland meeting which first used the name Alcoholics Anonymous, that it took from the book. Cleveland's May, 1939 meeting is the first documented meeting which used the name Alcoholics Anonymous, separate and apart from the Oxford Group."
"meeting" (terms which you appear to use interchangeably) were the first to use the term "Alcoholics Anonymous." Yet your e-mail message only mentions the claim that Clarence was the first to use the term/initials "A.A." In this latter regard, it strikes me as unconvincing that Nell Wing (in the reputed exclusive revelation made only to you) is being portrayed as so authoritative on the matter of Clarence being the first to use the "initials A.A." Nell Wing did not start employment (as a typist) in the NY office until March 1947 nearly 8 years after the Cleveland group started. The term/initials "A.A." was ubiquitous at that time. The term/initials "A.A." was also used repeatedly in the
March 1941 Jack Alexander Saturday Evening Post article to describe both the members of the Fellowship and the Fellowship as a whole. It's also interesting that you cite Mary C Darrah. She wrote in "Sister Ignatia" (pg 35): "In May 1939, the book Alcoholics anonymous was finally published. At the same time, debate in Akron over allegiance to the Oxford Group escalated into open hostility. With the newly published book for a base, the angry Clevelanders left T Henry's home and organized their own group in Cleveland, far removed from the Buchmanites . Led by Clarence S, they called themselves 'Alcoholics Anonymous' taking their name from the title of the newly published book. They held their first meeting of the newly named Alcoholics Anonymous group on May 18, 1939, at the Cleveland Heights home of Abby G. When attendance was recorded, sixteen members were officially present. Thus the first group to officially call itself Alcoholics Anonymous convened in Cleveland, Ohio."
"Ignatia already knew that in 1939 Clevelanders had openly refused to attend Akron meetings, in part because of religious confusion over the Oxford Group. Clarence S, one of the Cleveland leaders who led the exodus from Akron and convened the first Cleveland meeting, boldly called himself 'the Father of Alcoholics Anonymous.' Shortly after beginning the first Cleveland group, Clarence persuaded Elrick B Davis, a Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter, to write a series of six editorials ." In "Dr Bob and the Good Oldtimers" (pg 164) it states: "Clarence said, 'I made the announcement at the Oxford Group that this was the last time the Cleveland bunch was down as a contingent - that we were starting a group in Cleveland that would be only be open to alcoholics and their families. Also that we were taking the name from the book 'Alcoholics Anonymous' ."
Anonymous had been circulating among the Akronites, and by mid-April of 1939 the first printed copies became available. Clarence at once borrowed from the title of the draft the name by which he began to refer to his group. This was not "the alcoholic squadron of the Oxford Group" but "Alcoholics Anonymous," apparently the first clear use of the term as a specific and exclusive named The mere change of name did little to allay Catholic suspicion, but the availability of a written and published program afforded another option. At the Williams's home on Wednesday, 10 May 1939, Clarence - with the approval of his traveling companions - announced that this would be their last visit to the Akron meeting. On the next evening, interested alcoholics were invited to a new meeting to be held each week in Cleveland at the home of Abby 6., the most recently sober of the visitors. This would be a meeting, Clarence declared, of "Alcoholics Anonymous." In the Bibliography of "Not God" pg 418 it states: "For a time especially in the 1950s, some who were upset with developments within A.A. proclaimed Clarence S. to be the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous ."
The title that appeared on the Multilithed copies was 'Alcoholics Anonymous." There is some dispute about who first thought up this title; most thought is was Joe W, a New Yorker writer who remained sober only 'on and off." That was Bill's recollection, and he believed that the name first appeared in their discussions in October 1938. (*) The first documented use of the name in the A.A. archives is in a letter from Bill to Willard Richardson dated July 15, 1938. It is an invitation to Messrs. Richardson, Chipman and Scott of the Rockefeller Foundation, Bill W to come to any of the Clinton Street meetings. 'Certainly in the cases of you gentlemen' Bill wrote 'we shall gladly waive the heavy drinking that has qualified us for Alcoholics Anonymous. We think you are one of us, and there are no honorary members." There, the name was used in such a way as to indicate that Richardson was already familiar with it.
later below. According to a letter dated July 18, 1938, from Dr Richards of Johns Hopkins, Bill, at that time, was using 'Alcoholics Anonymous' both as the working title of the book and as the name of the Fellowship."
although debate continues about where and how the name was first used by a group. Oldtimer Clarence S. stated that the Cleveland group he founded in May 1939 was actually the first grozp to use the name "Alcoholics Anonymous." Whatever the individual groups called themselves (usually Just "meetings"), the name certainly was used earlier than that to describe the Fellowship as a whole."
where the term is used twice to describe the name of the Fellowship as a whole].
1938, Clarence S. (who had started a group in Cleveland in May of that year) persuaded a writer named Elrick B. Davis to do a series of newspaper articles about A.A. Published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, they were run in a prominent space and were supported with pro-A.A. editorials. As Bill described the series: 'In effect the Plain Dealer was saying, 'Alcoholics Anonymous is good, and it works. Come and get it.' Hundreds did; by the following year, the city had 20 to 30 groups and several hundred members. Said Bill, 'Their results were . so good, and A.A.'s membership elsewhere ... so small, that many a Clevelander really thought A.A. had started there in the first place' ..."
involved; one A.A. historian has described Clarence as an 'abrasive' personality."
Cleveland as in earlier days. In the years to come, there were further clashes, over finances, policy, the start of the A.A. General Service Conference, and other matters. The criticism was directed more at Bill than at Bob. . 'People in New York decided they were it, and we were jealous,' said Oscar W. "Bob wasn't that way. He had a marvelous nature. I don't know why we had that built-in animosity. Clarence didn't like Bill and would cuss him out, so you can see my animosity came secondhand,' Oscar said. 'If anything bad came out of New York, I blamed Dill. I had to blame someone' ." In Bob P's aborted (by the Conference) manuscript of a history of AA from 1955 to 1985 it states: "The members of the new Cleveland group were uncertain what to call themselves and discussed several suggested names. "None of them seemed fitting," remembered Abby C, (sic) "so we began to refer to ourselves as 'Alcoholics Anonymous' after the title of the Big Book."
reality, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. He became perhaps the most controversial character in AA He turned against Bill and aroused the Cleveland contingent to accuse Bill and Dr Bob of 'getting rich' off the Big Book and the generosity of Mr. Rockefeller - which they had to disprove with a certified audit of their financial affairs. Clarence tried to organize a nationwide revolt against the Conference Download 13.83 Mb. Share with your friends:
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