The Washington Group: Foundations, 1936-1941 and into the Present: 75th Anniverssary Edition

By: Charles E. Schamel

The compilation of this history was possible because of documents and oral history interviews collected for the archives of the Washington Area Intergroup Association (WAIA). Most of the documentation came from three sources: the AA General Services Archives in New York, the WAIA Office in Washington, and oral history interviews with early members of the group. Many of the "old-timers" interviewed by the author had saved documents from their early years in AA, and they donated the historically valuable materials to the WAIA Archives project.All the stories reported below came from reliable sources: members who were a part of the Group at the time, contemporary correspondence, publications, and newspaper articles. Some of the stories were, however, remembered or written many years after the event. Memories fade and exact dates, even years, tend to merge over time. In this history, however, only events that were documented at the time they happened are treated as hard facts. Everything else, including after-the-fact accounts, are cited here as "stories." The reader may decide their validity.Many people who were part of the group and some who were central to the events described here do not appear in this story because their names did not appear in the correspondence or publications that were available for research. Additional documentation may be discovered to provide the missing information. Oral history may eventually fill in some of these gaps, but as the events recede into the past, fewer first hand witnesses remain alive.This is the second printing of this work. Most of the information contained in the first edition is included here, but major revisions have been made. An inventory of the holdings of the WAIA Archives is appended to this history. Most of the documentation supporting the history can be found in the archives.Experience indicates that many "old-timers" preserved memorabilia and documents from their early days in AA. Their memories and the documents they preserved are an invaluable source of the history of bygone days. The WAIA Archives Project has thus far only contacted a small portion of these valuable people. There still remains much work to be done.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0692273018
• ISBN13: 9780692273012
• Release Date: September 2014
• Publisher: WAIA Press
• Length: 164 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 0.4" x 6.7"