The origins of Daylight Saving Time

The idea of daylight saving time is said to have been started back in the Ancient Civilizations as they adjusted their daily schedules to the sun. Typically the day was divided into 12 hours regardless of day length which would ensure the daylight hour was longer during the summer months.

Benjamin Franklin took this idea one step further while on an American envoy to France. He published an anonymous letter that suggested that the people of Paris reduce the usage of candles by rising earlier to use the sunlight. Since there was no standardization of time during Franklin’s day, he clearly did not come up with the idea, but set something in motion. Once many countries started keeping precise schedules (mainly due to rail and communication networks needing standards for time) the idea for modern daylight saving time was born.

DST was first proposed by a man named George Hudson in New Zealand for a very simple reason, he was an entomologist and wanted to use the daylight hours after work to collect insects. In 1985 he wrote a letter to the Wellington Philosophical Society proposing a 2 hour daylight savings shift. Others became interested in the idea, but nothing ever came of it.

There is some controversy on who was the original creator of DST, as an Englishman named William Willet came up with the idea of DST who was disappointed in how many Londoners slept through a majority of the summer’s daylight hours. (Also for selfish reasons, he hated to cut his rounds of golf short at dusk.) The proposal was sent to the House of Commons in 1908 but never became law.

It wasn’t until WWI (1916) that the use of DST officially started. Germany and its allies used it as a way to conserve coal during war time. After that Britain, most of its allies and most European neutrals joined them. The following year Russia started using DST along with a few other countries while the United States didn’t adopt its use until 1918.

Most countries participate in DST to some degree (turning your clocks ahead an hour when DST starts, and back an hour once it ends) but a few countries and states don’t participate at all. Some places move forward/backward in half hour increments and in the Southern Hemisphere the beginning and end dates are in the reverse. The dates can also vary depending on where you are.

One of the main reasons for DST is to save energy as it reduces the use of artificial light in the mornings and the evenings. However the research provides contradictory results as to whether enough energy is saved to make DST worth it since electricity usage is greatly affected by geography and climate. Retailers and sporting goods stores greatly benefit from DST as it provides more daylight as more light means more time to be outside or shop. It is also argued that DST is great for public safety. Many studies have shown decreased traffic and pedestrian fatalities due to DST. Winston Churchill argued that DST enlarges "the opportunities for the pursuit of health and happiness among the millions of people who live in this country"

DST has gone through many amendments, transformations and really caused a lot of controversy. In the United States alone it has been enacted, been disbanded, and enacted again with many revisions. As it becomes more of a political issue, DST is sure to be changed many more times over the next century.

Interesting Facts about Daylight Saving Time

-The correct spelling is Daylight Saving Time not Saving(s).

-Through 2006, Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. ended a few days before Halloween (October 31). Children’s pedestrian deaths are four times higher on Halloween than on any other night of the year. A new law to extend DST to the first Sunday in November took effect in 2007, with the purpose of providing trick-or-treaters more light and therefore more safety from traffic accidents. For decades, candy manufacturers lobbied for a Daylight Saving Time extension to Halloween

-Widespread confusion was created during the 1950s and 1960s when each U.S. locality could start and end Daylight Saving Time as it desired. One year, 23 different pairs of DST start and end dates were used in Iowa alone. For exactly five weeks each year, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were not on the same time as Washington D.C., Cleveland, or Baltimore--but Chicago was. And, on one Ohio to West Virginia bus route, passengers had to change their watches seven times in 35 miles! 

-Patrons of bars that stay open past 2:00 a.m. lose one hour of drinking time on the day when Daylight Saving Time springs forward one hour. This has led to annual problems in numerous locations, and sometimes even to riots. For example, at a "time disturbance" in Athens, Ohio, site of Ohio University, over 1,000 students and other late night partiers chanted "Freedom," as they threw liquor bottles at the police attempting to control the riot.

-To keep to their published timetables, trains cannot leave a station before the scheduled time. So, when the clocks fall back one hour in October, all Amtrak trains in the U.S. that is running on time stop at 2:00 a.m. and wait one hour before resuming. Overnight passengers are often surprised to find their train at a dead stop and their travel time an hour longer than expected.

-Following the 1973 oil embargo, the U.S. Congress extended Daylight Saving Time to 8 months, rather than the normal six months. During that time, the U.S. Department of Transportation found that observing Daylight Saving Time in March and April saved the equivalent in energy of 10,000 barrels of oil each day - a total of 600,000 barrels in each of those two years.

All facts were found at (http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/k.html)