October 1939 · Cleveland
A committee of seven
Five men and two women, one of each stepping off every month. They meet monthly, among other things to arrange hospital care.
Dorothy S.’s letter, in Box 4-5-9, 2007; Good Oldtimers, ch. 15
“One man and one woman drop off each month and are replaced by seniority.”
Taking turns
Cleveland’s own AA meeting had started in May 1939 at the home of a member, Al G., and by October there were hospital beds to arrange and newcomers to visit. After a run of articles in the Cleveland Plain Dealer late that month, the city had three groups within weeks. (You had to be sponsored, in You Had to Be Sponsored, tells that year.)
That October Dorothy S., the wife of Clarence S., who had started the Cleveland meeting, wrote to Ruth Hock, who answered AA’s mail: “Our committee of 7 is really functioning—5 men, 2 women…” It met once a month, among other things to arrange hospital care, and it had a rule. Each month one man and one woman stepped off, and the next in line took their places. Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers calls it the first central committee in AA, and adds that it “is said to be the first example of rotation in A.A.”
Bill W. gave Al G., its first chairman, the credit for rotation, Good Oldtimers says, though it can’t tell whether for this committee or for “the later establishment of a more formalized central committee.” Until then, Bill said, AA’s affairs had been “in charge of the ultra-oldtimers, and we naturally supposed it would always be that way.” Al was older than most members, had family affairs to keep him busy, and was ready to hand things on.
The committee became Cleveland’s Central Committee. By 1942 each group was invited to send two members, who had, its paper said, “no special powers or authority,” and in October that year the committee started a monthly paper of its own, the Central Bulletin. (Ink-stained wretches, in Jittery and Alone, tells how it helped start the Grapevine.)
Other cities found the same need. Bill described it later: phones went unanswered, hospitals tired of “slapdash” admissions, and old-timers rented a small office, hired a secretary and ran it as a committee. In Chicago, where the Saturday Evening Post article of 1941 had swamped Sylvia K.’s telephone, the members rented a one-room office in the Loop for her secretary, Grace Cultice. Bill called it “A.A.’s first organized local service center.”
Cleveland opened its own office in February 1945, in the Williamson Building on Public Square, with about two hundred members paying for it. New York’s groups formed their Intergroup in June 1946, and it arranged hospital beds for the city’s newcomers.
The secretaries were often AA members, and some members called that professionalism. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions answered that a secretary who answered the phone all day, arranged hospital beds and found sponsors for newcomers “could surely not be called a professional A.A.” The offices belonged to the groups that paid for them, and except in Chicago they grew up outside the service structure Bill was building in New York. Rotation went into the Traditions.
It’s October 1939, in Cleveland. AA’s own meeting here is five months old, and there are newcomers in the hospitals and beds to find. So the members have a committee, seven of them, five men and two women, meeting once a month.
Dorothy S. writes to AA’s office about it, and about its rule. Every month, one man and one woman step off, and the next in line take their places. Nobody runs it for long. It’s said to be AA’s first rotation, and the idea spreads.
Within a few years other cities need the same thing: somebody to answer the phone, find a hospital bed and send a member to see the man who called. Chicago rents a one-room office in 1941. Cleveland opens its own in 1945, and New York’s groups start their Intergroup the next year.