He noticed that the shutters of houses were tightly closed even though the Sun had risen. Everyone laments their shrinkage as the days grow shorter; and nearly everyone has given utterance to a regret that the nearly clear, bright light of an early morning during Spring and Summer months is so seldom seen or used…. That so many as hours of daylight are, to all intents and purposes, wasted every year is a defect in our civilization.
Let England recognise and remedy it. Willet spent a small fortune lobbying businessmen, members of Parliament, and the U. Congress to put clocks ahead 20 minutes on each of the four Sundays in April, and reverse the process on consecutive Sundays in September. But his proposal was met mostly with ridicule. Attitudes changed after World War I broke out. The government and citizenry recognized the need to conserve coal used for heating homes. The Germans were the first to officially adopt the light-extending system in , as a fuel-saving measure during World War I.
However, this was amidst great public opposition. Many Americans viewed the practice as an absurd attempt to make late sleepers get up early. The matter took on new meaning in April , when President Woodrow Wilson declared war. Suddenly, energy conservation was of paramount importance, and several efforts were launched to enlist public support for changing the clocks. A group called the National Daylight Saving Convention distributed postcards showing Uncle Sam holding a garden hoe and rifle, turning back the hands of a huge pocket watch.
We need every hour of light. With public opinion in its favor, Congress officially declared that all clocks would be moved ahead one hour at A. Canada adopted a similar policy later the same year. Americans were encouraged to turn off their lights and go to bed earlier than they normally did—at around P. Many Americans wrongly point to farmers as the driving force behind Daylight Saving Time.
In fact, farmers were its strongest opponents and, as a group, stubbornly resisted the change from the beginning. When the war was over, the farmers and working-class people who had held their tongues began to speak out. They demanded an end to Daylight Saving Time, claiming that it benefited only office workers and the leisure class.
The controversy put a spotlight on the growing gap between rural and urban dwellers. No fewer than 28 bills to repeal Daylight Saving Time had been introduced to Congress, and the law was removed from the books.
American had tolerated Daylight Saving Time for about seven months. The subject did not come up again until after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 7, , and the United States was once again at war. Clocks were set one hour ahead to save energy. Inconsistent adherence to time zones among the states created considerable confusion with interstate bus and train service. To remedy the situation, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in , establishing consistent use of Daylight Saving Time within the United States: Clocks were to be set ahead one hour on the last Sunday in April and one hour back on the last Sunday in October.
That was the rule, but some state legislatures took exception via a loophole that had been built into the law. Residents of Hawaii and most of Arizona did not change their clocks. Residents of Indiana, which straddles the Eastern and Central time zones, were sharply divided on Daylight Saving Time: Some counties employed it, some did not.
In , the U. Congress approved a bill to increase the period of Daylight Saving Time, moving the start to the first Sunday in April. The goal was to conserve oil used for generating electricity—an estimated , barrels annually.
In , the entire state of Indiana became the 48th state to observe Daylight Saving Time. The current daylight saving period was established with the Energy Policy Act of , which went into effect in Today, most Americans spring forward turn clocks ahead and lose an hour on the second Sunday in March at A.
Some farmers point out that the Daylight Saving Time is deceptively misnamed. It's a myth that DST was instituted to help farmers.
And so daylight saving time was abolished until the next war brought it back into vogue. Related: 5 crazy chapters in the history of daylight saving time.
After the war, a free-for-all system in which U. That federal law meant that any state observing DST — and they didn't have to jump on the DST bandwagon — had to follow a uniform protocol throughout the state in which daylight saving time would begin on the first Sunday of April and end on the last Sunday of October.
Then, in , the Energy Policy Act of went into effect, expanding the length of daylight saving time to the present timing. However, those who do observe DST take advantage of the natural daylight in the summer evenings. That's because the days start to get longer as Earth moves from the winter season to spring and summer, with the longest day of the year on the summer solstice.
During the summer season in each hemisphere, Earth, which revolves around its axis at an angle, is tilted directly toward the sun. Related: Read more about the science of summer.
Regions farthest away from the equator and closer to the poles get the most benefit from the DST clock change, because there is a more dramatic change in sunlight throughout the seasons. Research has also suggested that with more daylight in the evenings, there are fewer traffic accidents, as there are fewer cars on the road when it's dark outside.
More daylight also could mean more outdoor exercise or exercise at all for full-time workers. The nominal reason for daylight saving time has long been to save energy. The time change was first instituted in the U. During the Arab oil embargo, when Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC stopped selling petroleum to the United States, Congress even enacted a trial period of year-round daylight saving time in an attempt to save energy.
But the evidence for energy savings is slim. Brighter evenings may save on electric lighting, said Stanton Hadley, a senior researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory who helped prepare a report to Congress on extended daylight saving time in But lights have become increasingly efficient, Hadley said, so lighting is responsible for a smaller chunk of total energy consumption than it was a few decades ago. Clocks are set forward 1 hour for DST in the spring. DST changes: Dates and local times.
Daylight savings or daylight saving? Many countries in the Northern Hemisphere north of the equator use DST in the summer time , but not all.
Daylight Saving Time usually starts in March-April and ends in September-November when the countries return to standard time , or winter time as it is also known. Proposals to stay on standard time or move to full-time DST appear on the legislative agenda in the United States nearly every clock change.
Sunrise and sunset were about 1 hour later on 14 Mar than the day before. There was more light in the evening. When local daylight time was about to reach Sunday, 7 November , clocks were turned backward 1 hour to Sunday, 7 November , local standard time instead.
Sunrise and sunset were about 1 hour earlier on 7 Nov than the day before.
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