What you need to know about the history of daylight saving time: NPR

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All states except Hawaii and Arizona currently observe Daylight Saving Time. But every year more states are saying it’s time to stop messing around with the clock and embrace daylight saving time all year round.

Anna Blazhuk / Getty Images


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Anna Blazhuk / Getty Images


All states except Hawaii and Arizona currently observe Daylight Saving Time. But every year more states are saying it’s time to stop messing around with the clock and embrace daylight saving time all year round.

Anna Blazhuk / Getty Images

Millions of Americans want to give up the time change we undergo twice a year, disrupting our circadian rhythms and creating confusion. More than a third of US states now support a permanent switch to daylight saving time. If that happened, it would be a final victory for a plan that companies have praised for over 100 years.

For 2021, daylight saving time officially ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 7.

Daylight Saving Time is a Money Generator

When daylight saving time was extended until early November about 15 years ago, many saw the U.S. candy industry as a winner, as the extra hour of daylight could boost sales for more. of Halloween treats.

But the support between the companies ran much deeper than that, according to Michael Downing, a time change expert, professor at Tufts University who wrote Spring Forward: The Annual Daylight Saving Madness.

“What we don’t tend to know as Americans is that the biggest lobby for daylight saving time since 1915 in this country – and to this day – is the Chamber of Commerce. “said Downing, who died earlier this year, in a 2015 video on summer time.

“They understood something very early on: if you give workers the light of day, when they leave their jobs, they are much more likely to stop and do their shopping on the way home.”

One of the first prominent supporters of Daylight Saving Time was Abraham Lincoln Filene (of Filene Department Stores), who was a driving force behind the movement during World War I. Other supporters included the gardening industry, as well as professional baseball and tennis, according to historian Mike O’Malley from George Mason University.

When Congress held hearings on the extension of daylight saving time in the mid-1980s, golf industry officials said an “extra month of daylight saving time was worth $ 200 million. dollars in additional sales of golf clubs and green fees, ”Downing told NPR in 2007.“ The barbecue industry said it was worth $ 100 million.

19 states say we should all move forward

All states except Hawaii and Arizona currently observe Daylight Saving Time. But every year more states are saying it’s time to stop messing around with the clock and embrace daylight saving time all year round.

“In the past four years, 19 states have passed laws or passed resolutions providing for daylight saving time all year round, should Congress allow such a change,” according to the National Conference of State Legislative Assemblies.

The momentum appears to be building: between 2015 and 2019, 29 states introduced legislation to abolish resetting clocks, according to the Department of Transportation, which is in charge of time zones and daylight saving time.

States supporting the change range from Florida to Washington. Some states have said they will tie a potential change to daylight saving time decisions by their nearest neighbors, hoping to minimize disruption in areas such as the Midwest and New England.

None of these states can act without an act of Congress – and Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Has repeatedly introduced legislation to do so. Its Sunshine Protection Act is currently blocked at committee level.

The Navajo nation and U.S. territories, such as Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Guam, currently do not observe daylight saving time.

A World War I poster celebrates daylight saving time, with Uncle Sam changing a clock as a clock-headed figure throws his hat in the air. The one-hour adjustment will revert to standard time on November 7.

Library of Congress


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Library of Congress


A World War I poster celebrates daylight saving time, with Uncle Sam changing a clock as a clock-headed figure throws his hat in the air. The one-hour adjustment will revert to standard time on November 7.

Library of Congress

Daylight saving time is already the new normal

“Standard time” is only in effect for a declining portion of the year, with daylight saving time controlling the clock for 34 weeks – roughly eight months – in 2021. That’s far from the law original, which divides the year into two.

Lawmakers have steadily extended the daylight saving time calendar over the past decades. The first big change came in 1986, when the start of daylight saving time passed earlier, from the last Sunday in April to the first.

Then, in 2005, Congress moved the start date one month earlier to the spring and pushed it back a week later to the fall. The longer period came into effect in 2007.

These changes all followed the introduction of Daylight Saving Time in 1966, when Congress passed the Uniform Sounding Time Act. Until then, the United States had primarily used daylight saving time during WWI and WWII.

It all started as an energy policy

For decades, shifting clocks during the sunniest months has been promoted as a way to save energy. Indeed, the most recent expansion of the DST came through an energy law that Congress passed in 2005.

In the late 1700s, Benjamin Franklin was a strong supporter of daylight saving time. He “calculated that the city of Paris could save millions of pounds of candle wax each year if residents woke up early in the morning and went to bed early at night,” according to the House of Representatives. history blog.

Note that despite the inspiration of Franklin’s idea, Paris, alias the City of Light, does not seem to have adopted it.

Critics say there’s a flaw in the idea that America will save energy if people don’t use their lights as much: we now have many other ways to use energy, including operate air conditioners and televisions in the home. We also consume more gasoline while driving to take advantage of that bonus hour, according to Downing.

“Daylight saving time is a loser as an energy plan, but it’s a fantastic retail spending plan,” he said in his video on the matter.

Yet even Downing acknowledged that daylight saving time is a huge success: “I don’t think it’s ever going to go away,” he said.

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