|
 The personal archives of Dr. Bob and Anne Smith have been in
storage since Dr. Bob died in 1950. In the subsequent fifty
years, no one has had access this priceless piece of A.A. history.
In November 1999, Wally P. helped catalog this material as it was
transferred from the
attic of Dr. Bob's daughter, Sue Smith Windows, in Akron, Ohio to a permanent repository
at the Brown University Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies in Providence, Rhode
Island. The Dr. Bob and Anne Smith Archives joined several other collections already
housed at Brown including the Kirk Collection (15,000 items pertaining to the temperance
movement and early A.A.), the Clarence Snyder Collection (books, pamphlets, letters and
ephemera retained by "The Home Brewmeister" from 1938 to1983), and the
Ernie
Kurtz Collection (research material used to write Not God).
Wally P received no financial compensation for performing this
service to A.A. and "the millions yet to come." However, he did ask for
and did receive permission to copy and distribute, at no charge, materials from the
Collection. So, for the first time, this important, missing piece of A.A. history is
available for viewing. Brown University will post some of the Dr. Bob and Anne Smith
Archives on its website in the fall of 2000. Until then, this site will post as much
of the collection as possible, given the limited resources of the volunteer staff at the
not-for-profit Faith With Works Publishing Company.
We will start by posting items as soon as they are typed. Later we will try to
organize the material into categories.
|
