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What was the Jack Alexander article (1941), and what did it do?

In short:

  • It was a feature article about A.A. by Jack Alexander, a feature writer for the Saturday Evening Post, published in the issue of March 1, 1941.
  • Alexander, who was not an alcoholic, came to it a skeptic and spent about a month with A.A. members in several cities before he wrote it.
  • The Big Book's 1955 foreword says it brought a deluge of alcoholics asking for help: membership went from 2,000 in March 1941 to 8,000 by the end of the year, and "A.A. had become a national institution" (p. xviii).
  • The flood of letters led the New York office to ask the groups for money for the first time, and the rush of new groups brought the quarrels out of which, Bill W. says, the Traditions came.

The Big Book's own account (1955)

The Foreword to the Second Edition, written in 1955, gives the outline. After the book appeared in 1939, a magazine article and Mr. Rockefeller's dinner had brought membership to 2,000 by March 1941 (p. xviii). "Then Jack Alexander wrote a feature article in the Saturday Evening Post and placed such a compelling picture of A.A. before the general public that alcoholics in need of help really deluged us." (p. xviii). By the close of 1941 there were 8,000 members (p. xviii).

The foreword then says what came next: A.A. entered "a fearsome and exciting adolescent period" (p. xviii), with quarrels over membership, leadership and money, and out of that experience grew the principles later called the Twelve Traditions (p. xix).

Bill W.'s accounts (around 1955, 1957, 1969)

P-44 (around 1955). The Post assigned "one of its star writers, Jack Alexander" (P-44). He had just written about the New Jersey rackets and came to A.A. expecting little, but "he soon became an A.A. 'convert,' even though he wasn't an alcoholic" (P-44). He spent a whole month with them; Dr. Bob, Bill and the elders of the groups at Akron, New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Chicago spent hours with him (P-44). The piece "was the lead story in the Saturday Evening Post of March 1, 1941." (P-44).

Then six thousand appeals for help hit the New York office (P-44). Form letters wouldn't do; every one had to have a personal reply, and Bill says, "An enormous Twelfth Step job had to be done and done quickly." (P-44). For the first time the office asked the groups for money, with $1.00 per member per year as the measure, kept in a fund for office work only (P-44). The year began with two thousand members and ended with eight thousand (P-44). Public relations on that scale were new, and the lessons learned, among them anonymity at the public level and "public relations by the principle of attraction rather than promotion," can be seen in the Traditions (P-44).

A.A. Comes of Age (1957). Bill adds how it started. Dr. A. Wiese Hammer, a Philadelphia physician, brought A.A. to the attention of Curtis Bok, one of the owners of the Post (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). The members gave Alexander "the most exhaustive briefing on Alcoholics Anonymous any writer has ever had" and took him across the country (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Then the Post insisted on photographs. Over the protests of many members, A.A. agreed. Bill calls it "a crucial decision" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957), which he says proved right, at least for the time being.

When the article appeared, appeals for help and orders for the book came in by the thousands (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Volunteers answered them at the Twenty-Fourth Street clubhouse, paid workers were added, and the groups were asked to contribute: "The A.A. Tradition of self-support began to be a reality." (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Elsewhere in the same book Bill writes that the article "made A.A. a national institution" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957), that 6,000 inquiries reached the New York post office, and that Alexander became one of A.A.'s trustees (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). He also names the cost: as the new crop of members tried to form hundreds of groups, "the specters of disunity and collapse grew to frightening proportions" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).

P-53 (1969). In his last major talk, Bill recalled that Alexander came "thinking at first he was investigating just another racket" (P-53), and that when the piece ran, "pandemonium broke loose" (P-53). Every letter got a personal reply, and the lists of prospects were passed to the existing groups (P-53).

What the 1980 and 1984 histories add

  • Pass It On (1984) says the Post's owner and publisher, Judge Curtis Bok, heard of A.A. from two Philadelphia doctors, Hammer and C. Dudley Saul, and called in Alexander during the winter of 1940–41 because of his reputation for being hard-nosed (Pass It On, 1984). The four members who first visited him seemed to him like actors, and he suspected "my leg was being pulled" (Pass It On, 1984). The article was the lead story, titled "Alcoholics Anonymous," and was on the newsstands on February 24 (Pass It On, 1984). It ran to about 7,500 words with four photographs of members, none identified (Pass It On, 1984). It called Bill "Griffith" and Dr. Bob "Armstrong," and it printed the mailing address of the Alcoholic Foundation (Pass It On, 1984). Alexander served as a trustee from 1951 to 1956 (Pass It On, 1984).
  • Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers (1980) quotes the article on Dr. Bob, called "Dr. Armstrong" to keep him anonymous: he was in debt "because of his contributions to the movement and the time he devotes gratis to alcoholics" (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980). A Cleveland member, Oscar W., remembers working with about 17 newcomers after the article came out (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980). The book also mentions a second Jack Alexander article in the Post (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980); our sources don't give its date.

Our sources don't hold the article itself, only the short passages these books quote.

Where the sources differ

  • "6,000." Bill (around 1955 and 1957) uses it for the appeals and inquiries that came in (P-44; A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Pass It On (1984) quotes Lois W. estimating that 6,000 A.A.'s owe the start of their sobriety to the article (Pass It On, 1984). Those are different claims.
  • Who reached the Post. Bill (1957) credits Dr. Hammer's friendship with Curtis Bok (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957;), though on the same page he names Dr. C. Dudley Saul among the three Philadelphia physicians who took an interest in A.A. (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Pass It On (1984) says Bok heard of A.A. through both Hammer and Saul (Pass It On, 1984).
  • Membership before the article. The 1955 foreword says 2,000 by March 1941 (p. xviii); P-44 says the year began with two thousand (P-44); Bill (1957) says 2,000 in the spring of 1941, "a gain of 1,200 in a single year" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Bill in 1969 put it a year earlier: "By 1940, membership had jumped to about 2,000" (P-53). The foreword, P-44 and Bill's 1957 book all give 8,000 by the end of 1941.

Read it yourself

Sources

Source Pages Date
Alcoholics Anonymous, Foreword to the Second Edition xviii–xix 1955
P-44, A.A.'s Legacy of Service (Bill W.) — around 1955; pamphlet © 2018
A.A. Comes of Age (Bill W.) — 1957
P-53, Bill W.'s last major talk — October 1969; pamphlet © 2017
Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers — 1980
Pass It On — 1984

Comes of Age, Pass It On and Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers are cited by the file-page markers in our copies (f.), not printed pages.

Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book, P-44, P-53, A.A. Comes of Age, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers and Pass It On are © A.A. World Services, Inc.

These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.