This Sunday, March 12, at 2 a.m., time will “spring forward” as we mark the end of Standard Time (also known as Normal Time), and the beginning of Daylight-Saving Time (also known as Fast Time or Summer Time) as clocks will be moved forward an hour to gain an extra hour of daylight in the morning and push back the darkness in the evening.
Nearly everyone knows the maxim “spring forward, fall back” as a way to remember how to reset their clocks and nearly everyone will also grumble that we will lose an hour of sleep as we “spring forward” in time.
Daylight saving time has caused controversy since it began. Pundits have dubbed it “Daylight Slaving Time” as not everyone benefits from the change. Farmers and others who rise before dawn have to operate in the dark a while longer before daybreak.
The origin of Daylight-Saving Time is often credited to Benjamin Franklin when, as an American envoy to France in 1784, he suggested that the Parisians get up an hour earlier each day and wake everyone by ringing church bells and firing cannons at sunrise. Actually “saving time” was the idea of a New Zealander entomologist George Vernon Hudson in 1895, who simply thought that longer daylight hours would help him in his hobby of studying insects. And over the next few decades, others also supported the concept.
The idea slowly spread throughout the world, and starting on April 30, 1916, Germany was the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during World War I. Britain, most of its allies, and many other European nations soon followed suit.
In the United States, though, things were a little different. Each town and community set their own clocks and times could vary from place to place. There were hundreds of local times, each city setting its city hall or courthouse clock to match its own solar noon. When it was 12 p.m. in Chicago, it was 11:50 a.m. in St. Louis and 12:18 p.m. in Detroit. But that wasn’t a problem because local time was all that mattered.
That changed when the railroads began unifying the country. The railroads ran by their own time, which vexed travelers trying to make connections. Many railroad stations had two clocks, one for railroad time and one for local time.
To eliminate the confusion, railroads took it upon themselves in 1883 to divide the country into four time zones, with one standard time in each zone. To resist could mean economic isolation, so at noon on Nov. 18, 1883 for example, Chicagoans had to move their clocks back 9 minutes and 32 seconds. The Chicago Tribune griped that “it’s as if the railroads had commanded the sun to stand still.”
In Bradford, railroads were careful to detail exactly to the minute when trains were to depart and arrive. The New York, Buffalo and Philadelphia railroad time table in the Bradford Era, dated November 25, 1883, was careful to note that “trains run on Eastern Time, which is 16 minutes faster than Buffalo time.”
By 1916, as Daylight Saving Time was becoming common in the European nations, it was still hotly debated here. The Literary Digest saw it as a trick to make “people get up earlier by telling them it is later than it really is.” The Saturday Evening Post asked, in jest, why not “save summer” by having June begin at the end of February? And an Arkansas congressman proposed that we change our thermometers by moving the freezing point up 13 degrees and people could be tricked into burning less fuel to heat their houses.
The US did eventually adopt Daylight Saving Time in 1918, but Congress repealed it in 1919. American farmers rejoiced as the clock was set back to ‘God’s Time.’
Daylight Saving Time became a local option throughout the United States but in April 1930 that proved problematic to Bradford, a city so near to the New York state line. That spring, several New York state cities, including Buffalo, Jamestown, Albany, New York City and other major cities went on Daylight Saving Time but others, including Olean, Salamanca, Niagara Falls, Corning, Elmira, and Rochester did not, choosing to remain on Standard Time.
Bradford’s City Council decided to take a survey in the newspaper to see if Bradfordians would also adopt Daylight Saving Time and ran ballots in both the Bradford Era and the Star Record. People were asked to mark their choice, pro or con, cut out the ballot, and send it into the Era.
Some people were confused, believed that if adopted, DST would require them to get up an hour earlier every day, and go to bed an hour earlier at night and many believed that they would be required to physically stay awake until 2 a.m. to set their clocks ahead.
Surprisingly, one of the strongest opponents to “fast time” was the mayor of Bradford, Spencer Degolier, who had strong words on the subject. He referred to Daylight Saving Time as “mere foolishness, and those who were in favor were crazy.” He said “that anyone who believed in such foolishness was “not all there” and that the newspaper was wasting its time in seeking to find out whether or not fast time should be established in Bradford.” He also said that he would not permit the matter to be presented to the council at its next meeting.
Needless to say, City Council went ahead with the survey, and the polling took place in early May. On May 20th, the votes were counted: 3,568 ballots had been turned in with 2,428 votes for “fast time” and 1,140 against. That night, a resolution was passed by City Council, setting the start of fast time or Daylight-Saving Time as Sunday, June 1. It would end in September.
It got off to a rocky start. Church goers were either late, or too early. People showed up too late for work on Monday because they had forgotten to set the clock ahead. Two banks, the Commercial National Bank and the Bradford National Bank refused to honor daylight saving time at all, declaring that their constitutions required them to stay on Standard Time but two other city banks, McKean County Trust and Producers Bank and Trust switched to DST. Movie theaters began running ads alerting moviegoers that they were now on “fast time.” Oil producers were so worried that members would miss an “important dinner meeting at the Holley Hotel” that the announcement was listed five times on front page of Monday’s newspaper, each time with a reminder that it was scheduled “on daylight saving time.”
In February 1942, the government announced mandatory nationwide Daylight-Saving Time to help save fuel and promote national security and defense during World War II. “War Time” was repealed when the war ended in 1945.
Following the end of ‘war time’, local municipalities, cities, and states could continue to choose whether or not they observed daylight-saving time and if so, when it commenced and concluded. This led to endless confusion with airline, railroads, and shipping concerns, banking industries, and radio and television broadcasts.
In Bradford, surveys were still taken each spring, asking people to send in ballots to the Era and generally, about two thirds were for it, and one third opposed.
All that ended on April 13,1966 when Congress passed the Uniform Time Act. This Act mandated national start and end dates for daylight-saving time. States could ‘opt out’ if their legislatures voted against it, or if that state contained more than one time zone. Residents of Arizona (except the Navaho Nation) and Hawaii – along with the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, among others – chose to stick to standard time.
The rest of us continued to change the clocks twice each year.
But we may eventually be in for a change. The Sunshine Protection Act, unanimously passed by the Senate on March 15, 2022, would eliminate the seasonal changing of clocks and make daylight saving time permanent. But the bill stalled in the House, where it remains in a committee to this day.
Just a week ago, however, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida reintroduced the bill to Congress. He insists that the “lock the clock” bill — keeping daylight saving time forever — would have enormous health and economic benefits, public safety improvements, and even mental health by increasing sunlight each day.
Now, who knows when and if that bill will pass this time, but in the meantime, set your clocks ahead this Sunday morning — and ‘spring’ out of bed the next day, even though you have lost an hour of sleep. And don’t grumble about it.
