Rowland Hazard III

"For other persons named Rowland Hazard, see Rowland Hazard (disambiguation)"

Rowland Hazard "III" (October 29, 1881, Peace Dale, Rhode Island, US – December 20, 1945, Waterbury, Connecticut, US) was an American businessman and member of a prominent Rhode Island family involved in the foundation and executive leadership of a number of well-known companies. He is also known as the "Rowland H." who figured in the events leading to the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Family

Although several generations of Hazard men bore the name Rowland, the Rowland Hazard born in 1881 adopted the name suffix "III" to distinguish himself from his well-known forebears. According to biographers, Rowland III was known as "Roy" to the Hazard family. To his Yale classmates (BA, 1903), he was known as "Ike" or "Rowley." He married Helen Hamilton Campbell, a Briar Cliff graduate and daughter of a Chicago banker, in October 1910. The couple divorced in 1929, but remarried in 1931. [Dubiel, R. M., "Op. cit.," p. 64.] They had one daughter and three sons. Two of their three sons were killed in the service of the US armed forces in World War II. [http://www.aabibliography.com/rowlandhazzard.htm Rowland Hazard (1881-1945) ] ] Hazard served in the Rhode Island state senate 1914-1916.

Business interests

Rowland Hazard III was affiliated with a number of businesses throughout his career, including the Hazard family's primary interest in the Peace Dale Manufacturing Company until its sale to M.T. Stevens and Sons in 1918. He was also involved in the Solvay Process Company and the Semet-Solvay Company. (For further information on the Hazard family's involvement with the Solvay companies, see article on Solvay, New York.) Rowland III was instrumental in completing his father's ambition to play a leading role in the formation of the Allied Chemical and Dye Corporation (later AlliedSignal, then Honeywell following a 1999 merger with that company [ [http://www.hon-area.org/history.html Honeywell History ] ] ). From 1921 until 1927 he was affiliated with Lee, Higginson and Company, a New York banking firm. He organized La Luz Clay Products Company near his ranch in La Luz, New Mexico. Later in his career, he became an executive vice president of the Bristol Manufacturing Company, a maker of precision instruments based in Waterbury, Connecticut. He was a director with several companies in addition to Allied Chemical and Dye, including the Rhode Island Hospital Trust Company, the Interlake Iron Company, and Merchant's Bank of Providence, Rhode Island.

Relationship to the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous

Rowland Hazard III's struggles with alcoholism led to his direct involvement in the chain of events that gave rise to what is today Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), where he is remembered as "Rowland H.," though Rowland himself never actually joined AA.Dubiel, p. 78] His own efforts at recovery were markedly influenced by his consultation with pioneer psychologist Carl Jung some time in the early 1930s, although recent research suggests that the influence of his treatment by Courtenay Baylor, a lay therapist and leading proponent of the pre-Freudian psycho-spiritual therapeutic effort known as the Emmanuel Movement, may have been even more substantial.

Though Rowland is not named, his experience with Jung is described in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous". ["Alcoholics Anonymous," pp. 26-28] According to this account, Jung pronounced Rowland a chronic alcoholic and therefore hopeless and beyond the reach of medicine as it was at the time (a credible opinion, considering Jung's unique role in the development of psychoanalysis). The only hope Jung could offer was for a life-changing "vital spiritual experience" -- an experience which Jung regarded as a phenomenon. Jung further advised that Rowland's affiliation with a church did not spell the necessary "vital" experience.

This prognosis so shook Rowland that he sought out one of the most highly visible Christian evangelical movements of the 1930s, the Oxford Group. The Oxford Group was dedicated to the vigorous pursuit of personal change, and extending the message of hope through change by means of "personal" evangelism: one changed person sharing his experience with another (see Oxford Group). Rowland appears to have found the recovery he sought in the Oxford Group, at least for some extended period of sobriety.

Rowland came in contact with an alcoholic named Ebby Thacher when Rowland and two other Oxford Group members who knew Thacher were summering in Vermont in 1934. Thacher was the son of a prominent New York family who, like many well-to-do Eastern US families of the period, summered in New England, forming life-long associations and friendships with other "summer people" as well as with permanent residents of the area. Upon learning that Ebby was on the verge of commitment to the Brattleboro Retreat (the former Vermont Asylum for the Insane) [ [http://www.crjc.org/heritage/V02-34.htm Brattleboro Retreat (Vermont Asylum for the Insane) ] ] on account of his drinking, Rowland and fellow Oxford Group members Shep (F. Shepard) Cornell and Cebra Graves sought out Ebby and shared with him their Oxford Group recovery experiences. Graves was the son of the presiding judge in Ebby's case, Collins Graves, [http://www.recoveryemporium.com/AHistoryBB.htm] and the Oxford Groupers were able to arrange for Ebby's release into their care. This led to Ebby's acceptance of the principles of the Oxford Group and his own sobriety. Encouraged in the example of personal evangelism, Ebby later sought out an acquaintance of his own.

Bill (William G.) Wilson was raised in Vermont near the summer homes of Rowland Hazard, Ebby Thacher and others who had found release from their alcoholism in the Oxford Group. Ebby had been a "drinking buddy" of Wilson's over many years. By late 1934, Wilson was on the verge of total alcoholic collapse, living off his wife's income in the couple's Brooklyn, New York home, when Ebby paid him a visit. Ebby shared with Bill the message of recovery through the application of spiritual principles, famously encouraging Bill to choose his own conception of God. ["Alcoholics Anonymous," p. 12] This visit with Ebby set in motion a series of circumstances that led to Bill's own recovery from alcoholism in late 1934. Bill Wilson went on, with Dr. Robert H. ("Dr. Bob") Smith of Akron, Ohio, to carry the Oxford Group message of spiritual recovery to other alcoholics. The group of recovering alcoholics founded by Wilson and Smith would later break away from the Oxford Group to become Alcoholics Anonymous by 1939. The Oxford Group renamed itself Moral Re-Armament in 1938, and largely faded from the prominence it had enjoyed in the 1930s. Moral Re-Armament would eventually become a non-religious humanitarian organization, changing its name to Initiatives of Change in 2001.

This version of Rowland's story is commonly accepted within AA, and has been substantially confirmed in substance if not in detailed fact by evidence such as an exchange of letters between Bill Wilson and Carl Jung in 1961, in which Jung acknowledged his acquaintance with "Rowland H." ["Pass It On," pp. 381-386] Jung also made reference to his treatment of an unnamed alcoholic member of the Oxford Group in a 1954 talk, transcribed and recorded in Volume 18 of his Collected Works, "The Symbolic Life." [Jung, C. G.; Adler, G. and Hull, R. F. C., eds. (1977) "Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 18: The Symbolc Life: Miscellaneous Writings," Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-09892-0, p. 272, as noted 2007-08-26 at http://www.stellarfire.org/additional.html]

More recent research has identified some details of Rowland's story at variance with this traditional account. AA literature indicates that Rowland was treated by Jung for "about a year," ["Pass It On," p. 114] but recent scholarship suggests that the period during which Rowland could have consulted with Jung may have been limited to some time between June and September 1931, and perhaps only a few weeks within that span. [Dubiel, p. 74.] This research has also augmented knowledge of Rowland's recovery efforts, particularly his experience with the early spiritual alcoholism recovery movements of the first half of the 20th century. According to author Richard M. Dubiel, who has studied available evidence of Rowland's life and recovery experience based on Hazard family records of the Rhode Island Historical Society, Rowland was likely treated in the early 1930s by Courtenay Baylor, himself a recovering alcoholic and proponent of the so-called Emmanuel Movement, for substantially longer than his possible exposure to Carl Jung. [Dubiel, pp. 65-76.] Inspired by Episcopal clergyman Dr. Elwood Worcester of Boston's Emmanuel Episcopal Church, the Emmanuel Movement began in 1906 as an effort to treat what would today be regarded as psychological afflictions and disorders such as alcoholism through the application of spiritual principles. The work of the Emmanuel Movement was largely carried on by Baylor after Worcester's death. [ [http://www.springerlink.com/content/r3314h0227978437/ SpringerLink - Journal Article ] ] [ [http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=576&C=726 Understanding and Counseling the Alcoholic ] ]

Rowland's sobriety after 1934 does not appear to have been continuous. Dubiel documents a 1936 binge, but it is unclear if Rowland drank intermittently thereafter, if at all, for the remainder of his life. Dubiel notes that Rowland's later years "appear to have been prosperous enough," and included his joining the Episcopal Church in 1936, in which he remained active for the rest of his life. As noted earlier, Rowland never joined AA himself. Ebby Thacher returned to drinking and struggled to remain sober throughout the remainder of his life. Neither Wilson nor Dr. Bob Smith ever drank again after the date recognized by Alcoholics Anonymous as the date of its founding, June 10, 1935, the date of Smith's last drink.

References

* Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (2001) "Alcoholics Anonymous," Fourth Edition. New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. ISBN 1-893007-16-2, 575 pp.
* Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (1984) "Pass It On: The story of Bill Wilson and how the A.A. message reached the world." New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., ISBN 0-916856-12-7, 429 pp.
* Dubiel, R. M. (2004) "The Road to Fellowship: The Role of the Emmanuel Movement and the Jacoby Club in the Development of Alcoholics Anonymous." New York: iUniverse. ISBN 0-595-30740-X, 191 pp.
* [http://www.aabibliography.com/rowlandhazzard.htm Rowland Hazard (1881-1945) ] at www.aabibliography.com
* [http://www.aabibliography.com/roland_hazard_2004_alcoholics_anonymous.htm ROWLAND HAZARD new information alcoholics anonymous and oxford group 2004 ] at www.aabibliography.com

Footnotes