Marty Mann

Margaret Marty Mann (October 15, 1904 – July 22, 1980) was an American writer and the first woman to achieve longterm sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 1976, the NCA organized Operation Understanding where 50 people of relative fame gathered to address the social stigma surrounding alcoholism. Actors, politicians, sports people, physicians, lawyers, clergy, and more stood in the hotel ballroom and said "I am an alcoholic." The NCA hoped to reduce the social stigma surrounding alcoholism and encourage individuals and their families to get treatment. Mann hoped to raise social awareness that alcoholism is a deadly disease rather than a moral failure.

Background Marty Mann was born in Chicago into an upper-middle-class family, the daughter of William Henry Mann and Lillian Christy Mann. She attended private schools, traveled extensively, and was a debutante. Mann's father, once a top executive at the most prestigious department store in downtown Chicago, died of alcoholism.

Marty was a lesbian but was married briefly in her 20s. Mann was her maiden name, and she used the Mrs. title to protect her privacy. Society's prejudice against homosexuality was as strong as it was toward alcoholism during the 1940s and 1950s when she and the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism were struggling to survive.

Mann moved to England in 1930 and fell in love with photographer Barbara Ker-Seymer. The Tate Museum in London has photographs detailing their social circle. British photographer and society figure, considered one of the group designated by the tabloid press as "Bright Young People". They visited the Paris salon of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. She also socialized with Janet Flanner, Virginia Woolf, and Vita Sackville-West.

Her alcoholism escalated, and she spent six months in a London Hospital after a second suicide attempt. Marty Mann and R. Brinkley Smithers funded Dr. E. Morton (Bunky) Jellinek's initial 1946 study on Alcoholism. Dr. Jellinek's study was based on a narrow, selective study of a hand-picked group of members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) who had returned a self-reporting questionnaire.

In the 1950s, Edward R. Murrow included her in his list of the "10 Greatest Living Americans". Her book New Primer on Alcoholism was published in 1958.

Legacy Marty Mann wrote the following books:

Primer on Alcoholism

Marty Mann's New Primer on Alcoholism

Marty Mann Answers Your Questions about Alcoholism.

Mann was instrumental in the founding of High Watch Farm, the world's first recovery center founded on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 1980, Mann suffered a stroke at home and died soon after, aged 75.