A Brief History of Daylight Savings Time

Daylight savings – you either love it or you hate it. Actually, maybe you feel completely indifferent about it, but for the purposes of this blog, pick a side. On the second Sunday in March (aka Sunday, March 10 this year), we set our clocks forward an hour so that the sun sets at a later time. Then, on the first Sunday in November, we set the clocks back an hour so the sun sets earlier. As I came to school Monday morning hearing teachers and students alike grumbling about losing an hour of sleep and feeling discombobulated, I began thinking about daylight savings and how it came to be.

This all started in the late 1700s with Benjamin Franklin on a commission in France as an ambassador for the US. It’s a common misconception that he invented daylight savings time, but in reality, he just suggested that Parisians change their sleep schedules by getting out of bed earlier, thus going to sleep earlier, to save money on candles and lamp oil. However, this set the stage for George Hudson, an entomologist from New Zealand, to come up with the modern concept of daylight savings time in 1895. He suggested moving the clocks back two hours in March and forward two hours in October, all so he could have more daylight to study bugs. At this point, daylight savings still wasn’t a common practice, but it was beginning to take on a familiar form. In 1916, locations within the German Empire set clocks ahead by an hour during the war to use less power for lighting and save fuel for the war effort. They switched the clocks back when the war ended.

Daylight savings time as we know it was temporarily enacted in the US in 1918, as a bill suggesting a seasonal time shift was repealed after just seven months. However, President Roosevelt reinstated the practice during World War II to save fuel resources for the war effort. Still, this so-called “War Time” ended after the war, similar to the German Empire’s swift repeal of the time change at the conclusion of WWI. 

Daylight savings time was permanently codified in the US with the Uniform Time Act of 1966. This law established the common practice of springing forward and falling back, although the exact dates have switched around a bit over the years. Interestingly enough, there are two states that do not participate in the time change, Arizona and Hawaii. Under the Uniform Time Act, states are able to opt out of observing daylight savings, which is exactly what these two states did. 

Almost every year around daylight savings, lawmakers introduce bills to make the time change permanent, meaning the clocks would permanently be set as they currently are between March and November. Although this would give us more daylight in the winter, with the sun setting an hour later, it would mean that our mornings would be darker year-round. Several of these bills have been introduced in the past few years, but none have been passed. One reason for keeping the daylight savings practice may simply be for convenience’ sake because so many countries in the world follow the custom. Most countries in North America and Europe follow the time change, so it keeps time differences consistent no matter what. 

In my opinion, I like daylight savings. Sure, I hate giving up an hour of sleep to spring forward, but it’s only one day out of the year. I think seeing the sun set an hour later, even if it isn’t due to a drastic increase in actual daylight, is one of the hallmarks of the approaching summer months. And even though I dislike the sun setting so early in the winter, I dislike driving to school in the dark more. 

The whole debate about daylight savings seems a bit much ado about nothing, but honestly it would be strange to have daylight savings abolished when many Americans have participated in it every year for their entire lives. For now, though, daylight savings time is safe – until next year, at least.