3-08-2024 5:05am

A HISTORY OF

History of Daylight Saving Time (DST)

Daylight Saving Time (DST) is used to save energy and make better use of daylight. It was first used in 1908 in Thunder Bay, Canada.

Daylight Saving Time is the practice of setting the clocks one hour ahead of standard time to make use of more sunlight in the spring, summer, and fall evenings.

First Used in Canada in 1908

While Germany and Austria were the first countries to use DST in 1916, it is a little-known fact that a few hundred Canadians beat the German Empire by eight years. On July 1, 1908, the residents of Port Arthur, Ontario—today's Thunder Bay—turned their clocks forward by one hour to start the world's first DST period.

Other locations in Canada soon followed suit. On April 23, 1914, Regina in Saskatchewan implemented DST. The cities of Winnipeg and Brandon in Manitoba did so on April 24, 1916. According to the April 3, 1916, edition of the Manitoba Free Press, Daylight Saving Time in Regina “proved so popular that bylaw now brings it into effect automatically.”

Germany Popularized DST

However, the idea did not catch on globally until Germany introduced DST in 1916. Clocks in the German Empire, and its ally Austria, were turned ahead by one hour on April 30, 1916—two years into World War I. The rationale was to minimize the use of artificial lighting to save fuel for the war effort.

Within a few weeks, the United Kingdom, France, and many other countries followed the idea. Most of them reverted to standard time after World War I, and it wasn’t until the next World War that DST made its return in most of Europe.

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Who Invented DST?

If you think Daylight Saving Time is a good idea, you can thank New Zealand scientist George Vernon Hudson and British builder William Willett. In 1895, Hudson presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society, proposing a 2-hour shift forward in October and a 2-hour shift back in March. There was interest in the idea, but it was never followed through.

In 1905, independently from Hudson, British builder William Willett suggested setting the clocks ahead 20 minutes on each of the four Sundays in April, and switching them back by the same amount on each of the four Sundays in September, a total of eight time switches per year.

First Daylight Saving Bill

Willett’s Daylight Saving plan caught the attention of Robert Pearce, a British Member of Parliament, and he introduced a bill to the House of Commons in February 1908. The first Daylight Saving Bill was drafted in 1909, presented to Parliament several times, and examined by a select committee. However, many, especially farmers, opposed the idea, so the bill was never made into a law.

Willett died in 1915, the year before the United Kingdom started using DST in May 1916. It is not known if he was aware that his idea had become a reality seven years before his death in a small town in Ontario.

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Benjamin Franklin, the Father of DST?

Many sources also credit Benjamin Franklin for being the first to suggest seasonal time change. However, the idea voiced by the American inventor and politician in 1784 can hardly be described as fundamental for the development of modern DST. After all, it did not even involve turning the clocks. In a letter to the editor of the Journal of Paris, entitled “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light,” Franklin simply suggested that Parisians could economize candle usage by getting people out of bed earlier in the morning. What's more: Franklin meant it as a joke.

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An Ancient Idea

Although modern DST has only been used for about 100 years, ancient civilizations are known to have engaged in comparable practices thousands of years ago. For example, the Roman water clocks used different scales for different months of the year to adjust the daily schedules to the solar time.

Daylight Saving Today

Daylight Saving Time is now used in over 70 countries worldwide and affects over one billion people every year. The beginning and end dates vary from one country to another.

Before the establishment of time zones in 1883, there were more than 144 local times in North America.1 The resulting time differences between adjacent towns and cities were not critical when it took days to travel from place to place.2 With the proliferation of railroads, faster travel became possible across large geographies, and travelers could sometimes arrive at an earlier local time than they had departed.2 Due to this lack of time standardization, train scheduling proved difficult to coordinate, resulting in missed connections and collisions.1 As a result, the major railroad companies began to operate on a coordinated system of four time zones starting in 1883.2

Because the development of standardized time was transportation-driven, the government coordination of time zones was handled by transportation agencies.3 In 1918, the federal organization in charge of railroad regulation — the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) — was given the power to address coordination concerns.4 3 That year, five time zones were officially adopted as the US entered World War I: the Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, and Alaska zones, all of which are still in use today.4 However, the need for coordination among all transportation modes became increasingly important after World War II.5 When the Department of Transportation was created by Congress in 1966, it was assigned “the responsibility of regulating, fostering, and promoting widespread and uniform adoption and observance of standardized time” within each time zone.4 5 6

Daylight Saving Time (DST) was enacted as a legal requirement by the Uniform Time Act of 1966.6 7 Motivated by transportation improvements, this act mandated standard time within the existing time zones and established a permanent system of uniform DST, including the dates and times for twice yearly transitions. 6 While State governments cannot independently change time zones or the length of DST, they can exempt themselves from DST, independent of DOT authority or permission. 6 Nonetheless, DST is observed uniformly across the nation except in American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Hawaii, and most of Arizona.8

Today, the Department of Transportation continues to oversee standard time due to its historical and contemporary importance in transportation and associated commercial activity.7 Time zone boundaries, established by law, can only be changed by the Secretary of Transportation upon a determination that the proposed adjustment serves the “convenience of commerce.” 9 Per DOT policy, a petition requesting such a change must come from the highest political authorities in a State or locality. Several communities have requested changes to their time zone designation over the past two decades, the most recent being Mercer County, North Dakota in 2010, which chose to switch from Mountain to Central Time.10 Authorizing these changes and keeping track of the legally designated time zone for each area of the U.S. are key facets of the DOT’s oversight of uniform time observance, time zones, and DST. 6