Nancy Olson [who founded the AAHistoryLovers].
There was also a good panel presentation given mainly
PA and MD.
Bill Lash taped all of the conference except for a
to be taped.
Good lunch provided and enough coffee and donuts
From: greatcir@comcast.net> . . . . . . . . . . . . 9/17/2006 8:06:00 PM
about 10 large cardboard boxes. Three were related to Dr. Bob and the rest
Clarence Snyder. There were a couple of other boxes - one had the Akron
pot in it and the other one some of Dr. Bob's medical items, his wallet with
catalogued. One man at the library thought Sue sold many of these boxes to
other researchers there were mostly academics writing papers or books. I
in the margins) from GSO to Clarence.
time.
future.
The library was undergoing personnel changes. I did not meet her, but my
contact was Tovah Reis. Library personnel indicated no real interest in AA
sources.
business?) because he was "messed up" with AA. There was a Camp in
in the Great Lakes for alcoholics to vacation.
From: John Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . 9/17/2006 1:03:00 PM
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The Primary Purpose Website of Spartanburg, South
selling AA related literature.
wrote:
> I got an e-mail from someone asking if I've heard
> 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
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++++Message 3711. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: Clarence did not write program
for 1st Internat''l Conf.
From: ArtSheehan . . . . . . . . . . . . 9/17/2006 10:53:00 PM
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Mitchell
This is a rather long message that I hope you find informative. It
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.
In the written record, Clarence is given due credit as being the
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.
I have no axe to grind against Clarence nor do I place him on an
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):
"On Wednesday, May 10, 1939, the Clevelander's went to the Oxford
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.' ."
Then on page 141 you wrote.
"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.' . 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."
In your own writing you assert that both the Cleveland "group" and
"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."
Darrah also wrote (pg 164):
"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' ."
In the soft cover version of "Not God" (pg 78) it states:
"Meanwhile, the multilith draft of the text of Alcoholic's [sic]
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 ."
In "Pass It On" pg 202 it states:
"Bill always said more than 100 titles were considered for the book.
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.
(*) this is contradicted in a 1938 letter from Bill W to Dr Bob cited
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."
In "Pass It On" pg 203 it states:
"The title of the book quickly became 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."
[It goes on to mention the Foreword to the 1st edition of the Big Book
where the term is used twice to describe the name of the Fellowship as
a whole].
In "Pass It On" pg 224 it states:
"Publicity at the local level also proved effective. In the autumn of
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' ..."
In "Pass It On" pg 257 it states:
"This was not the first controversy with which Clarence had been
involved; one A.A. historian has described Clarence as an 'abrasive'
personality."
In "Dr Bob and the Good Oldtimers" pgs 270-271 it states:
"By 1942, Bill was not in such favor with Clarence and his faction in
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."
On this tenuous fact Clarence S based a lifelong claim that he was, in
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
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