Good Book Publishing Company
153 Halona Street
Kihei, Maui, Hawaii 96753
(808) 874 4876
May 8, 2002
PRESS RELEASE Contact
Robert H. 808 874 4876
MAUI HISTORIAN AND AUTHOR DICK B. DONATES MAJOR A.A. SPIRITUAL ROOTS COLLECTION TO LIBRARY AT BIRTHPLACE AND CHILDHOOD HOME OF BILL W.
The Alcoholics Anonymous fellowship and recovering people around the world will now have a new opportunity to study and learn the spiritual history and roots of the Twelve Step movement which has so strongly influenced society’s approach to alcoholism and addictions this past century. A.A. itself does not conduct research or own libraries, centers, or properties.
Maui author and historian Dick B., himself a recovered alcoholic, active participant in A.A., and retired attorney has spent the past eleven years researching, interviewing, writing, and publishing some 18 titles and many articles on the biblical roots of the drunks-helping-drunks society that impacted the recovery world beginning in 1935. The author uses a pseudonym and observes the A.A. Traditions of anonymity in his writings and appearances.
In pursuit of A.A.’s spiritual history, the author has assembled some 23,900 historical items on Maui, Hawaii, and used them in his research, discoveries, analyses, books, articles, and seminars. However, the Kihei author has had a dream that his documenting historical items would someday be made available for public access, viewing, and study at an appropriate location on the U.S. Mainland. And that dream will now become a reality because a Vermont man and wife who are also in recovery fellowships have spent their own money to acquire, renovate, found, donate to, and steward the non-profit Wilson House in East Dorset, Vermont. Now visited annually by thousands each year, this birthplace and childhood home of A.A. co-founder William Griffith Wilson (known as Bill W.) has also acquired Wilson’s boyhood home–known as the Griffith House–and refitted it for use as an historical library housing A.A. historical items and memorabilia of all types.
The Managers have invited Dick B. to conduct heritage seminars at the Wilson House each year since 1995. In the ensuing years, they have acquired and catalogued many books and items for the historical library on their own. However, they have worked for many months to have Dick B.’s collections (and his titles and films explaining them) become a part of the A.A. historical heritage at Bill Wilson’s birthplace. This plan has now come to fruition with the author’s donation to Wilson House for its library of over 6,000 historical books and materials previously housed on Maui. The collection has been appraised by a noted archivist, collector, and A.A. history scholar at $133,500.00 and has just arrived in Vermont where it is being inventoried, catalogued, and computerized for public use at the Griffith House Library.
Details on this historical treasure and its contents can be obtained by contacting the managers of Wilson House at East Dorset in Vermont, and by examining its website or that of
historian Dick B. at <http://www.dickb.com/index.shtml>.