. Obviously those opposing the usefulness and validity of this group describe the founding of it in a negative manner and vice-versa, the dates and locations, however, do not change. A.A. was started in 1935 in Akron, Ohio after a meeting between William G. Wilson, a New York stockbroker, and Dr. Robert Smith, an Akron surgeon. The story, by people opposed to A.A., is that these two founders had been kicked out of a popular religious cult of the late thirties called "The Oxford Group" or "The Oxford Movement," founded by Dr. Frank Nathaniel Buchman, a renegade Lutheran minister. They still believed in the religious tenets of Buchmanism so they made their own independent group with the same religious beliefs but to serve alcoholics better, which they both were at the time. According to the Alcoholics Anonymous website, however, they had both recovered and thought they had found a way to "mass-produce" sobriety with their original six steps based on the six principles of The Oxford Group, which they had supposedly left because it didn't offer enough help to them or the other alcoholics. Then the six steps became twelve and a second group of alcoholics were put together in New York in the fall of 1935, and after that a third in Cleveland in 1939, around 1938 is when the name was actually established. In 1939, the "Fellowship" published its first textbook, Alcoholics Anonymous, which is also known as "The Big Book," written by Bill Wilson. The book explained A.A.'s philosophies and methods, the core of which was the Twelve Steps of recovery. Bill died on January 24, 1971 of pneumonia and Dr. Smith died on November 16, 1950. Since then, Alcoholics Anonymous has become popular not only in the United States but internationally as well. A World Service Meeting, started in 1969, has been held every two years since 1972 in New York and other cities around the world.
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