by a guy by the name of Fred P. who got sober
wishing this meeting well.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
++++Message 5863. . . . . . . . . . . . Timeline of the First 25 A.A. Groups
From: Glenn Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/12/2009 1:59:00 PM
(jax760 at yahoo.com)
TIMELINE OF THE FIRST 25 A.A. GROUPS
By John B.
Big Book Study Group of South Orange, NJ
1. Ohio: Akron (July 4, 1935)
2. New York City (Fall of 1935)
3. Ohio: Cleveland - Abby G. Group (May 11, 1939)
4. New Jersey: The New Jersey Group (May 14, 1939)
5. Connecticut: Greenwich Blythewood Sanitarium (June 16, 1939)
6. Illinois: Chicago (September 13, 1939)
7. Ohio: Cleveland Borton Group (November 16, 1939)
8. Ohio: Cleveland Orchard Grove (November 20, 1939)
9. Washington, D.C. (December 1939)
10. California: San Francisco (December 1939)
11. California: Los Angeles (December 19, 1939)
12. New York: Orangeberg - Rockland State Hospital (December 1939)
13. Michigan: Detroit (December 1939)
14. Pennsylvania: Philadelphia (February 13, 1940)
15. Texas: Houston (March 15, 1940)
16. Arkansas: Little Rock (April 19, 1940)
17. Indiana: Evansville (April 23, 1940)
18. Ohio: Cleveland West 50th Street Group (May 8, 1940)
19. New Jersey: Camden (May 14, 1940)
20. Virginia: Richmond (June 6, 1940)
21. Maryland: Baltimore (June 16, 1940)
22. Ohio: Dayton (July 8, 1940)
23. Michigan: Coldwater (Summer 1940)
24. Ohio: Cleveland Berea (August 27, 1940)
25. Ohio: Cleveland Westlake (September 20, 1940)
History Documents:
January 1939 AABB The Original Manuscript
April 10, 1939 AABB 1st Edition
June 1953, 12 & 12 - AAWS
1955 AABB 2nd Edition
1957 AACOA AAWS
1980 DBGO AAWS
1984 PIO AAWS
1999 HIW Mitchell K.
GSO Archives
Notes related to the formation of the groups.
A.A. Group # 1 Akron, Ohio
"The spark that was to flare into the first A.A. group was struck at Akron,
Ohio
in June 1935, during a talk between a New York stockbroker and an Akron
physician."
(AABB 2nd Edition, p.xv)
Hence the two men set to work almost frantically upon alcoholics arriving in
the
ward of the Akron City Hospital. Their very first case, a desperate one,
recovered immediately and became A.A. number three." (AABB 2nd Edition,
p.xvii)
This refers to Bill's and Dr. Bob's first visit to A.A. Number Three. See
the
Pioneer Section. This resulted in A.A.'s first group, at Akron, Ohio, in
1935.
(AABB 2nd Edition p.156)
"Before our visit was over, Bill suddenly turned to his wife and said, "Go
fetch
my clothes, dear. We're going to get up and get out of here." Bill D. walked
out
of that hospital a free man never to drink again. A.A.'s Number One Group
dates
from that very day." - Bill W.
(AAB 2nd Edition p.189)
"He came out of the hospital on the Fourth of July, 1935." (DBGO p.85)
Author’s Comments: If you read the Original Manuscript of the Book
Alcoholics
Anonymous, it becomes abundantly clear in Chapter 11, "A Vision for You"
that
the "Fellowship" of Alcoholics Anonymous was alive and growing in January of
1939.
"Then, in this eastern city there are informal meetings such as we have
described to you, where you may see thirty or forty, there are the same fast
friendships, there is the same helpfulness to one another as you find among
our
western friends. There is a good bit of travel between East and West and we
foresee a great increase in this helpful interchange.
Some day we hope that every alcoholic who journeys will find a Fellowship of
Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination. To some extent this is already
true."
(BBOM p.130)
The first 100, obviously considered themselves part of the A.A. fellowship
whether or not they were specifically calling their "informal meetings"
A.A.,
OG, Drunk Squadrons, etc. We think any debates whether the eastern and
western
cities mentioned are or are not the first "A.A." groups are pointless. Bill
Wilson and Bob Smith obviously considered their respective groups to be
#’s 1 &
2 and that should set the standard by which we apply our analysis.
The anniversary date for Akron Group # 1 seems questionable. Bill however,
tagged it as the day that Bill Dotson was discharged from the hospital. DBGO
says this was July 4, 1935. Akron Intergroup advises that they go by the
July
4th date.
A.A. Group # 2 Brooklyn, New York
A second small group promptly took shape at New York ... (AABB 2nd Edition,
p.xvii)
In the fall of 1935, Bill and Lois began to hold weekly meetings in their
home
on Clinton Street. (PIO p.162)
"…At this juncture, the meeting -- the first meeting of the Manhattan
Group,
which really took place in Brooklyn -- stopped, and it stopped for a very
good
reason. That was that the landlord set Lois and me out into the street, and
we
didn't even have money to move our stuff into storage. Even that and the
moving
van -- that was done on the cuff. Well, it was then the spring of 1939.
Temporarily, the Manhattan Group moved to Jersey. It hadn't got to Manhattan
yet...
...Meanwhile, the Manhattan Group moved to Manhattan for the first time. The
folks over here started a meeting in Bert T.'s tailor shop. Good old Bert is
the
guy who hocked his then-failing business to save the book Alcoholics
Anonymous
in 1939. In the fall, he still had the shop, and we began to hold meetings
there. Little by little, things began to grow. We went from there to a room
in
Steinway Hall, and we felt we were in very classic and good company that
gave us
an aura of respectability. Finally, some of the boys -- notably Bert and
Horace
-- said, "A.A. should have a home. We really ought to have a club." And so
the
old 24th Street Club, which had belonged to the artists and illustrators and
before that was a barn going back to Revolutionary times, was taken over. I
think Bert and Horace signed the first lease."("The Road from the Table on
Clinton Street": Bill Wilson's Talk to the Manhattan Group, NYC, 1955)
Author’s Comments: This group was actually what this writer terms "The
Bill &
Lois Wilson Road Show." After being evicted from 182 Clinton Street the New
York
contingent met everywhere and anywhere over the next several months.
Including
Montclair, NJ, South Orange, NJ, Green Pond in NJ, Flatbush in Brooklyn,
Bert
Taylor’s Shop, Bert Taylor’s Loft, an apartment on West 72nd Street,
Blythewood,
Steinway Hall, Rockland State Hospital, and finally the 24th Street
Clubhouse.
(See PIO p.216-217) Based on Lois’s comments, Pass It On describes these
as "At
least a dozen A.A. groups had evolved in the New York Metropolitan area..."
Unfortunately, this passage is misleading. We can see that this was actually
a
dozen different meeting locations for the same group of 30 – 40
alcoholics. This
is clarified in Bill’s talk to the Manhattan Group in 1955. The previous
paragraph in Pass It On explains it better when it says: "When they lived at
Clinton Street, A.A. meetings had been held there. A.A. followed Bill and
Lois
wherever they went."
The New Jersey "contingent" split off from the New York Group and remained
in
New Jersey when the Montclair meeting ended in mid June of 39. The NY
contingent
crossed the river back to Manhattan and the Jerseyites began meeting in
South
Orange at the home of Herb Debevoise continuing what had been started in
Montclair.
A.A. Group # 3 Cleveland, Ohio
On May 11, 1939, one month after the book had been published, a 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."
(HIW p.141)
A.A. Group # 4 The New Jersey Group
Lois’s diary entry for May 14, 1939 indicates they went to the meeting at
the
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