I read Ernie’s comment with a good deal of surprise. I may have overloaded with booze in my palmy days, but I sure didn’t overload on Akron in my historical research on Alcoholics Anonymous. I suspect there are a good many pieces of historical work that Ernie, and most others, have not examined. Fortunately, bits of it have been presented on ADHS from time to time.

Let’s talk for a moment about the historical gaps as to the New York program that have been filled since Ernie published his landmark work in the 1970’s. For a quick exposure, I would point the Encyclopedia to the rapidly growing body of historical material now being posted on Archives International as time and money permit (http://www.archivesinternational.org). The timeline that is posted there and on my personal blog site (http://www.dickb-blog.com) point out the two distinct origins of A.A. – United Christian Endeavor in Vermont in Dr. Bob’s youth and the Rowland Hazard/Carl Jung encounters in Switzerland. As have several others, I have explored and published Rowland Hazard’s story after work at Brown University, Rowland’s birthplace, and many other spots. Next, I have managed to unearth accurate information from the writings of Lois Wilson, Mrs. Samuel M. Shoemaker, and the accounts of eyewitnesses who saw and heard Bill Wilson made a decision for Christ at the altar call at the Rescue Mission – at the same altar and the same kind of call that his friend Ebby Thacher had made shortly before and reported to Bill. From countless Oxford Group witnesses, manuscripts, and writings, I have been able to detail exactly what Bill and Lois did with the Oxford Group in New York before and after Bill met Dr. Bob in Akron. These materials came, in part, from Lois’s own Oxford Group notes, interviews with Mrs. W. Irving Harris, and writings found at Stepping Stones. As far as I know, none of this material was ever reported or published prior to the extensive documentation – from Sam Shoemaker’s personal journals (which I obtained from his daughters) and others meticulously documented in my footnotes and bibliographies. Thus, of my twenty-five published historical titles, perhaps two of the most overloaded with New York history are: The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous (http://www.dickb.com/Oxford.shtml) and New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A. (http://www.dickb.com/newlight.shtml). Recently, I made available the entire Shoemaker collection which is now being shown around the country and will be shown at Archives 2005 in Akron by Ray G., archivist at Dr. Bob’s Home. The materials came from extended visits to Hartford Seminary, the Wilson House, Stepping Stones, GSO archives in New York, Calvary Episcopal Church and St. George’s Parish in New York, Princeton Alumni Archives, 58 boxes examined for a week at the Episcopal Church Archives in Austin, and personal correspondence, manuscripts, flyers, pamphlets, books, and articles obtained from Oxford Group leaders and Shoemaker friends James Draper Newton and his wife Eleanor Forde Newton in Florida, L. Parks Shipley, Sr., in New Jersey, T. Willard Hunter in California, Rev. Dr. Howard Clinebell in California, Thomas Pike (rector at St. George’s), Steve Garmey (vicar at Calvary Church), Mrs. W. Irving Harris – wife of Shoemaker’s assistant minister who, with her husband, lived at Calvary House where Shoemaker and Frank Buchman (at times) lived, Garth Lean (biographer of Frank Buchman), Michael Hutchinson (Garth’s colleague), Dr. Morris Martin (Buchman’s alter ego), James Houck who never went close to Akron but attended meetings with Wilson in Maryland, and a host of others.

Over 23,900 of my collected historical materials have now been donated to, and placed at the Griffith Library at the Wilson House in East Dorset, Vermont. The grand opening of the Library will be this July. And I think it fair to say that the great bulk of the materials pertain to the Oxford Group, Sam Shoemaker, Bill and Lois Wilson, and the New York origins of A.A. Of new and great importance will be the presentations at Tampa on April 6 to 9 where the entire program conducted by Clarence Snyder from the earliest days in 1938 to his death will be presented on Saturday in the form of the new book by three of Clarence’s long-time sponsees and by Steve F. who will duplicate in a workshop exactly what Clarence did as he took hundreds through the Twelve Steps.

There is no need for an ad hominem discussion of what Ernie Kurtz, Mitch Klein, Charlie Bishop, Bill Pittman, Mel Barger, Earl Husband, Willard Hunter, Wally Paton, Mary Darrah, Bob Fitzgerald, Francis Hartigan, Robert Thomsen, Susan Cheever, Bill White, Glen Chesnut, Steve Foreman, Nan Robertson, and a host of others have added to the pot since A.A.’s historical awakening in the 1970’s. In fact, I credit a lot of the progress to the quiet and dedicated work of A.A.’s second archivist Frank Mauser (now deceased) who encouraged us all and opened many a door for me in the 1990’s. In fact, Frank was possibly the very first speaker on our history when our landmark “Day in Marin” programs in 1991 and 1992 were held in Mill Valley, California, and at which Frank, Mel Barger, Smitty (Dr. Bob’s son), Willard Hunter, and I were the presenters What is important is that the heavy overload and much over-worked story of Jung to Hazard to Thacher to Shoemaker to Wilson and even to the long-dead William James be looked at today in terms of what New York was doing be examined alongside of the development of the highly successful program and cures in Akron between 1934 and 1938 which gave rise to the newly successful approach of combining medical, religious, and alcoholic experience with the power of the Creator to help drunks who had theretofore not even been admitted to hospitals for specific care of their malady.

I sincerely hope that the writings and collections of the past three decades will be intensely examined and incorporated in any new encyclodpedia pertaining to A.A.’s part in what has come to be called the “war on drugs” headed up by a “czar.”

God Bless, Dick B.