- The views and opinions expressed

during this podcast are

those of our guests.

No one person speaks for A.A. as a whole.

- Nestled in the heart of the

General Service Office lies

the Archives Department.

In Episode Two, we took

you on a tour of GSO,

but didn't have enough time to

include the most popular part

of the tour, the GSO Archives.

Each GSO tour concludes at the Archives,

because our visitors always want time

to explore the displays

and check out the cool artifacts

that make A.A. history.

So let's see how our

primary purpose evolved.

My name is Nathan and I'm an alcoholic.

Welcome to GSO's Archives.

(upbeat music)

The Archives Department

is part reference library,

part storage facility, and part museum.

Let's sit down and walk

around with some folks

who know a thing or two

about the GSO Archives.

- Hi, my name is Michelle Mirza

and I am the Archives Director

at the General Service Office.

- I'm April Hegner, I am the

Special Collections Archivist

here at the GSO Archives.

- Hi, I am Zoe Blecher-Cohen,

Assistant Archivist.

- Hi, I am Kyle Zaczek,

I'm Associate Archivist.

- I'm Jamie Fritz, Digital Archivist.

- To paraphrase the mission,

we collect, organize, preserve,

and make the archives available

and accessible to researchers.

- So what types of materials

and documents do you typically

handle here at Archives?

- Possibly every type of material

that exists from reels, cassettes,

CDs, vinyl records,

and also digital files.

There are, you know, non-textual materials

such as photographs and

slides and microfilms.

- We were also taken on a tour.

Here's April again.

- Welcome to the Archives.

- So the first thing that we

see is this wall of six black

and white photographs.

Can you tell me about this?

- It's the first panel on

our timeline of A.A. history.

So it starts with Bill

W., one of our co-founders

and his wife, Lois.

One of the first photographs

you'll see is Bill

in his army uniform, which was about 1918.

And then next to those are Bill and Lois

on their wedding day,

which was also in 1918,

Bill is again wearing his army uniform

and Lois is in her wedding dress.

- So 17 years before the founding of A.A.

- One of my favorite

photographs is a picture

of Lois in the yard at

her home in Clinton Street

in Brooklyn, which is still there today,

although it is a private residence.

- Right.

Heads up before knocking on the door.

- Yes, and she's standing

against a brick wall

and there are a couple

of plants around her

and she was a very avid gardener.

So there we are seeing her standing there

and she has a little twisted wire,

or twisted hanger in one of her arms

and there is a string attached to it.

- This is an early selfie.

- This is an early selfie,

because Lois pulled that

wire attached to the string,

which pulled the shutter of the camera.

- That's great.

Very cool.

Oh, and I see the next picture

is the famous motorcycle shot.

So is this the picture from the trip Bill

and Lois took around the country in 1925?

- Correct.

- I know this one.

Here's Lois telling her side of things

at the 1955 International Convention.

- We set out on a

motorcycle for a year's trip

and we packed all our worldly

belongings on this motorcycle

and we really were a funny sight.

It was a motorcycle with

a sidecar of course,

and Bill didn't like to

drive very much, and I did.

I loved to drive.

(everyone laughs)

And he used to sit in the bathtub

with his feet hanging over

the bow of the bathtub.

And I was driving and

I was a little peanut

and this great long thing in the bathtub.

We were really awfully funny looking.

- That was kind of one of the

geographicals that Lois tried

to do with Bill.

They would go out on motorcycle

trips early in the years

of their early marriage to

try to cure Bills alcoholism,

which unfortunately did not work.

(light music)

- The Archives was officially

opened in November, 1975.

There was this wonderful ribbon

cutting ceremony that our

very first archivist was

there, non-alcoholic Nell Wing.

Now, Nell Wing was not

always our archivist.

- Nell was 29 at the time

she started at GSO then it was called

the Alcoholic Foundation.

She served as receptionist

and did other clerical work

before becoming Bill's secretary in 1950.

At the time of her arrival,

the three room office had

13 people working there,

including Bill.

It was a time when A.A.'s

traditions were just

beginning to emerge.

The General Service Conference was still

in it's discussion phase and the board

of trustees of the Alcoholic Foundation,

now the General Service Board,

was just starting to figure out it's role.

Nell soon recognized the importance

of Bill's correspondence

and other material.

She began going through his

waste basket to retrieve

and squirrel away material that

would eventually be a basis

for GSO's archives and be

indispensable to scholars, writers

and A.A. members in the years to come.

- And I think it's absolutely remarkable

that the early staff, namely Nell Wing,

thought to save these precious letters.

(upbeat music)

- In this podcast, we respect

the anonymity of A.A. members.

Last names are shared only

for those who are not in A.A.

- How do researchers or members

of the public access materials

in the A.A. Archives?

- Anyone can come in and

look at the exhibits,

or look at any published material.

However, if a researcher

or anyone's interested

in conducting onsite research

of the unpublished material,

there is an application form

and procedures around that.

- So we go next, right in this way

to our reading room, slash, library.

- The reading room,

lots of books up on the

wall in the bookshelf.

And we have a big table here

and some cabinets full of

books over here and this couch?

- Yes, so that is Bill W.'s couch.

It was in his office

in a previous location.

We moved to this location in 1992.

So Bill was never in this

office, but his couch is.

- He sat on this couch?

- He did.

- Can I sit on this couch?

- You may.

We encourage visitors to

please have a seat on it.

It has been refurbished,

so it does look really new.

It's made from brown leather

and has some kind of

gold rivets on the side.

- Excellent, what's this room used for?

- Primarily, it is our library.

So we have several bookshelves

that are filled with books

that are either related to alcoholism,

or written by alcoholics,

or written by researchers

who have used our archives

to research their book.

- Who visits the Archives?

- So most of the time it's regular

A.A. members who are coming

to visit the GSO.

Perhaps they're coming to the

11 o'clock meeting on Fridays.

Perhaps they're just

wanting to take a tour.

- A lot of members are interested in

how A.A. started in their

own area or district.

We might have a member

who's interested in,

how did A.A. come to New Jersey.

Who were the founding members and they,

we would provide them with

that early correspondence.

- Well, we also get researchers.

- PhD students, studying

some aspect of alcoholism.

- We get authors.

- There are professional documentarians

who are interested in producing a film,

or a documentary about the

co-founders or about A.A.

- We get people from U.S., Canada, Mexico.

- There's a lot of requests

for Bill's writing on

spirituality, on depression

and all of those topics.

- This year alone have

had visitors from Scotland

and Ukraine and Poland.

- Speaking of A.A. internationally,

and this back wall is covered in pictures

from International Conventions.

We have another one

coming up here in 2025,

but I can see the picture

of the first one here,

going back to 1950 in Cleveland, Ohio.

Is that about right?

- Yeah, so I can speak

to that a little bit.

- Here's Zoe, Assistant Archivist.

- One of the interesting

things that you can also see

with a lot of the early

International Convention photos is

that if you look at the right angle,

you can see that there are

some people actually penciled

in to kind of fill out the panoramic view.

- So wait, this photo, it's true.

If you look closely at the photographs

of the earliest International Conventions,

you can see that some

of the figures sitting

in the audience are not really there.

Silhouettes have been

etched into the empty seats.

- Yes, to flesh out the

audience a little bit.

- It does, it makes it look

a little bit more full.

- The back of people's heads.

- Certainly not necessary

for the pictures these days

when you compare it to

this picture in front

of me from 1985 where it's a

whole stadium full of people.

- And you can also see

we have pretty much every

International Convention except

for the most recent

International Convention in 2020,

which obviously didn't

happen 'cause of COVID.

And so instead we have a poster

from the virtual experience

that happened instead.

- "2020, A.A. International

Convention, a Virtual Experience."

Yes, I know everyone's

looking forward to coming back

to that in person in 2025.

(upbeat music)

As we heard about in Episode Three,

the International

Convention is a huge event

that brings together

about 50,000 alcoholics

from around the world

along with their friends

and family every five years.

The next one is coming up

July 3rd through the 6th,

2025 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

If you are interested in joining us

for this incredible celebration of A.A.,

you can find more information at aa.org.

Michelle seemed to have an endless supply

of impactful stories from past

International Conventions.

Here's one:

- It was the 80th anniversary

convention in 2015 in Georgia.

And I was asked to present

two minutes from the Archive's

Sunday morning session.

And in the green room just

before my presentation, there was a member

who was in custody at the

time who spoke right after me,

but he was also in the green room.

And for me, that was the

reality of alcoholism.

He was in jail.

Over here, working in this office,

I see the success stories, right?

I see our Staff members.

There are other folks,

but also the people who come in,

that was very affecting for me.

That was the reality of

alcoholism, the effects of it,

the consequences.

And I would never forget

how that made me feel.

(light music)

- One of the wonderful

things about all these images

is that it gives you a great idea of how

A.A. has grown over the

years and the decades.

Going from a small auditorium

to filling giant stadiums.

- You start here with a

couple of hundred people

and then you have thousands of people.

And by this picture you have

tens of thousands of people.

How many countries is A.A. in now?

- A.A. is in approximately 180

countries around the world.

And if you look over here to our A.A.

Around the World exhibit,

you can see some items

from other countries.

One of my favorite items

here is a piece from Japan

in 1947.

It's a Christmas greeting card from Tokyo.

It's actually written on rice paper.

And they say, "Terrific field

here for A.A. may start a group,

we'll write you soon

about this if it develops.

Best wishes for the new year."

- All the way in Japan.

There's also Australia, India,

South Africa, New Zealand,

Cuba, Cambodia, and England.

This is a great exhibit.

(light music)

And what do we got here?

- This exhibit case is

commemorating the 70th anniversary

of the publication of the 12

Steps and 12 Traditions book.

- So are these some of

the original manuscripts?

- Yes.

So a couple of things here we

have include handwritten text

from Bill himself.

And then we have some of

the typewritten pages.

And then you have some handwritten

edits where you can kind

of see how things kind of

evolved and changed over time

before it was published,

edited and polished.

Bill was a big fan of handwriting.

A lot of his correspondence and the texts,

he would have his big yellow legal pad

and he would write out notes on that.

The 12 Tradition Essays

were originally published

in the Grapevine in the late 1940s.

And then were compiled along

with this 12 Step Essays

into the 12 and 12,

which was released in 1953.

(upbeat music)

- So this is a pretty

colorful display over here.

- Oh, I can take that one.

- Associate Archivist, Kyle.

- So this is our ICYPAA display.

One of the rotating

exhibits that we have here.

- ICYPAA, I-C-Y-P-A-A stands for-

- International Conference

of Young People in A.A.

It started here originally

in Niagara Falls, New York.

- What year was that?

- 1958, some of-

- There are a lot of fun

items in this display

that are reflective of the

great energy brought to A.A.

by it's Fellowship of Young People,

along with original letters from Bill

regarding the early conference,

there are great commemorative

items like hats,

a chrome lighter and a mug.

- The conference was held

in Philadelphia in 1976.

So there is a Liberty Bell Freedom mug.

- As well as a T-shirt from

the 25th annual conference

held in 1982.

- There's a slogan on the

front of the shirt that says,

"Young is anyone who

still has growing to do."

- Can you speak to why the Conference

for Young People in A.A. was founded?

What was the drive for that?

- It was founded for the

purpose of providing a setting

for an annual celebration of sobriety

among young people in A.A.

Since the inception, a

growing group of people

who first would not consider themselves

as young people has become regular

attendance at the conference.

- That's great.

It makes sense that

the International Conference

of Young People in A.A.

has a very colorful display.

This is a lot of fun.

- Thanks Kyle.

- Of course, anytime.

(light music)

- How do you decide which items,

or documents are important

to keep in the Archives?

- Great question.

We are guided by our

collection scope and policy,

which provides guidance on

what materials we collect.

- Are there any particularly historic,

or significant items in the A.A. Archives

that stand out to you?

- Yes. (laughs)

I would say the early

group correspondence,

as well as the early records created

by the Alcoholic Foundation

and the Alcoholic Foundation

is the predecessor

to the General Service Board.

Those records are the building

blocks of A.A.'s structure

of A.A.'s history.

In essence,

the early group records

contain letters from thousands

of alcoholics seeking help,

or letters from a family member,

a doctor or some other

professional writing

to the office circa late 1930s

through the 1950s.

And just to share an experience

around why I think this is also special

and also especially affecting,

I was at the 2005 Toronto

International Convention,

there was this older

member who was hanging

around the archives for a while.

Throughout the course

of those couple of days,

I got to know him, little bit of his life

and the business that he and his wife ran.

But he used this terminology

that I remember from since 2005.

He said, "We're just a

bunch of crazy coconuts."

So about nine months

after that convention,

I was doing some research in the files

and back then we did not have

the correspondence digitized.

Right?

So if you wanna find something,

you're reading all the letters

to find what you're looking for.

Now, you're just looking

for a search term,

because the letters are digitized.

And as I'm reading through the letters,

I came across the term, "crazy coconuts,"

and I was just, that to me was just like,

who else uses that term?

And I started to read

now the entire letter.

And would you believe

that letter was written in

1950 by the member's wife

who wrote to our office seeking help

for her husband?

And what about that's such full circle.

I still remember it, that story,

and I just, it just brings

tears, just very affecting.

(upbeat music)

- One of our favorite items

and most popular is this typewriter here.

It's very small.

And it was used to help

type the Big Book manuscript

by Ruth Hawk, who was the first secretary

and a non-alcoholic.

- The first edition of the Big Book,

the manuscript, was typed

out on this typewriter?

- Correct.

- And I would imagine

that visitors wouldn't get a chance

to type on this typewriter, would they?

- No, we do not let them do that, no.

- But could we?

(typewriter keys clicking)

Dear listener, we give you the sound

of the Big Book manuscript

being typed on this early 20th

century manual typewriter,

beginning May, 1938.

(upbeat music)

So what have we got in the back?

- So this is an area

that we don't normally

take visitors into, but for

you, we'll invite you in.

- All right.

- So here you will find the

heart of our collection.

These are materials that

we use on a daily basis

to conduct our research.

This is our main storage area.

We have one onsite storage area,

and then we have two

offsite storage areas.

- This is a room that is

filled with file boxes,

probably can, I guess, a

thousand of them, more?

- Probably.

We measure in cubic feet, and

we just completed an inventory

and we have approximately 2,700 cubic feet

of material in our archive.

- Not a lot of room to spare in here.

- Not a lot, we are a growing collection.

Just last year we accessioned

about 350 new items.

- Wow.

- We have a manuscript collection,

which has been given to us by one donor.

So we keep all those together.

We also have a lot of group records.

We have early group records

that go back to the late 1930s

to approximately the 1950s.

And then we have newer

group records that kind

of pick up from there and go forward.

We try to maintain every single

item that AAWS publishes.

We collect everything in English, French,

and Spanish, which is the

three languages of the office.

But we also produce things

in other languages as well.

And we do maintain those.

We have a collection

of General Service Conference materials,

the World Service Meeting,

which was first held in 1969.

We have recordings from various

International Conventions,

and we also have various

recordings of Bill W.

(upbeat music)

- For more information about A.A.,

please visit our website at aa.org.

- Have you faced any unique

challenges in preserving,

or organizing the archival materials?

- There are several on my list,

but I think one of the

most profound challenges

that I have experienced,

and given that we

were mostly inherently

paper-based collection,

is archiving digital materials.

We had to relearn how to

archive digital materials,

because there is so much

to learn about the nature

of digital materials.

And so fortunately we have a

trained digital archivist now

who can help us muddle through that

and bring us up to speed

in this digital era.

- Yeah, that does seem like

a considerable challenge.

Are there any upcoming projects,

or initiatives in the Archives Department

that you're particularly excited about?

- Yes. (laughs)

One large and certainly long-term,

a five-year plus project,

is assessing the extent

of our audio-visual collection

and making some decisions

on those materials.

My staff recently conducted an inventory

of the entire collection

to assess it's size.

And a quick takeaway from this

project that I can share is

that while we continue

to expand digitally,

our paper-based materials

continue to grow.

So the final results of that inventory

will help inform decisions

about use of space.

And then certainly we're digitizing

Bill's correspondence,

board and all the conference-related work.

The digital files will of course help

to enhance our search capabilities,

as well as serve as a preservation

format of that material.

Moreover, Bill's correspondence is one

of those open for access materials

so we really try

to limit our researchers

handling original documents.

So it's very important for

us to be able to digitize,

preserve, and produce access

copies for our researchers.

- Meanwhile, in the back of the back room.

And what is this?

- This is our fireproof safe.

It's approximately five feet

tall and probably about three,

or four feet wide.

And it contains some of our oldest books.

- Can we take a look inside?

- Sure.

(safe clicks)

(safe creaks)

- Whoa.

Oh, the smell of old books.

- It's one of my favorite smells.

- Wow.

Can you tell us what

we're looking at here?

- We have our first editions,

our first printings,

second printings, third printings,

and then we have second

editions and third editions.

Additionally, we have first editions

and first printing, second printing,

third printing, et cetera

of 12 Steps and 12 Traditions.

We have some Experience,

Strength and Hope and then-

- Michelle, you've been

working here almost 25 years.

Have there been any

especially impactful moments

that you could share about?

- It's the reaction of visitors

when they come into the archives.

They're so grateful.

They share their stories.

There are some visitors who

had never seen photographs

of our co-founders,

or things that we take for

granted, like the letters

between Bill and Young,

or Dr. Silkworth and Towns Hospital.

All of that that we take for granted,

because we know the story and for them,

it's novel and for them

it's an experience.

And just hearing that, "I

have saved so much just

to come over here."

Or, "This was part of my destination."

That to me it, it never gets lost.

It's very humbling.

(upbeat music)

- We hope that you come

and visit the GSO Archives

in person, but if you aren't able to,

be sure to check out our online

archives exhibit at aa.org.

We hope you enjoyed this week's episode.

Be sure to subscribe so

you can keep coming back.

- Thank you for listening

to Our Primary Purpose,

a podcast produced by the

General Service Office on behalf

of the Fellowship of Alcoholics

Anonymous in the U.S.

and Canada.