A Brief History of Daylight Saving Time

This weekend marks the beginning of that controversial custom of setting our clocks ahead in the spring and back in the fall, known as Daylight Saving Time.  That's right, it isn't Daylight Savings time, as most of us have always referred to it; the 's' after Saving is non-existent.

Many people, myself included until recently, hold the notion that Daylight Saving Time came about as a means to allow farmers to have more time for their agricultural chores. It seemed to make sense, since farm activity during the growing season should be more labor intensive. However, farmers can arise and go to bed whenever they want to, so who needs to reset clocks?

In fact, a form of time adjustment goes all the way back to ancient Rome, but brevity demands that we skip ahead to the late 18th Century, when our estimable Ben Franklin was in Paris (1784) and wrote an essay titled, "An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light." Modeled after the French practice, it proposed a method for using fewer candles by using morning sunlight (a.k.a. rising earlier).

The Chandlers of America were furious with Benjy for suggesting such a scheme to take away their huge profits from the manufacture and sale of candles. But then, most of the worlds’ leading scientists, including Franklin, were of the opinion that the extra heat and pollution generated by burning candles was contributing to global warming—controversy that is still rampant to this day in one form or another.

At any rate, the flame was extinguished (the idea, not the candle flame). It never took hold anyway, and clocks remained undisturbed for another hundred years.  Franklin’s essay was intended as satire, by the way.

Skip ahead to 1895, when George Vernon Hudson, a New Zealand entomologist (studies bugs) proposed a two-hour time shift ahead in October and a two-hour shift back in March, a reverse of the modern trend.  Well, that didn't fly either, any more than most of his bugs did.

The "invention" of DST is credited to a Brit named William Willett who, in 1905, put forth a plan to move clocks forward in the summer to take advantage of increased light in the mornings and evenings. He wanted clocks set ahead 20 minutes each of four Sundays in April and back 20 minutes each of four Sundays in September.  Okay, that was really ridiculous!  The main opposition came from farmers...whom else?

The first recorded modern use of DST was during WWI, to save on fuel for the war effort. Germany started the practice, but Britain and other countries soon followed suit.  Nobody on the opposing side wanted Germany to ‘get ahead’ in the weapons race. After the war ended, the practice ended, as well it should have.

Good old FDR instituted year-round DST in the United States on February 9, 1942, two months after Pearl Harbor, and it lasted until September 30, 1945.  From then until 1966, many states practiced a form of DST, but there was no uniformity and confusion was the norm.  Congress finally stepped in and passed the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which stated that DST would begin on the last Sunday of April and end on the last Sunday of October.  As usual, some of the states disagreed with the standard and still had the ability to arbitrarily exempt themselves, which they promptly did.

Over the years from 1966 to 2007, several changes were made to the dates on which DST started and ended for those states where it was practiced.  Then Congress stepped up once more and created the Energy Policy Act of 2005. It established the current dates as the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November, but it didn't take effect until 2007... Go figure!

Oh, one other fact... Two states, Hawaii and Arizona do not observe/practice DST.  That is, except for the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona, where they do adjust their clocks, or sundials, or whatever they use to tell time.  Those pesky Indians!

If reading this column confused you, as writing it confused (amused?) me, then I'll give you one good take-away from it: Here is how you remember which way to set your clocks tonight.  

Spring ahead - Fall back

And just how many of you are going to set your alarms for 2 AM so that you can reset the clocks at the correct time? Hah! Sure you will.

All of the above “facts” are true, except where I embellished a little to inject some humor.  On a more serious note, I do believe that God created the diurnal cycles just fine, and He doesn’t need any help from mankind to make them more perfect.  Of course there is more daylight in the summer than in the winter, because it is the growing season, and crops do need more sunlight.  In the winter there is less daylight, and that fact should prompt us to retire earlier and get more rest.  What could be simpler?

Maybe someday we’ll learn to leave God’s creation alone and quit trying to fine tune every last thing as though we really have any lasting influence on nature. We don’t.