Latest / Atmosphere with Emily Gracey / BONUS: The History of Daylight Saving Time in America
Transcript
- History of DST: This weekend, most Americans will be doing something we've been doing on and off for more than 100 years. We'll change our clocks. And then we'll spend the next several days complaining about it. But have you ever wondered why we started doing this in the first place? Who decided we needed to mess with time twice a year? And why, after all these years, are we still arguing about it? I'm Meteorologist Emily Gracie and this is a bonus episode of Atmosphere. Did you know that before time zones were created, every town basically had its own time? Communities set their clocks according to the sun. When the sun reached its highest point in the sky, that was noon. Which sounds perfectly reasonable until you realize that noon in one town wasn't necessarily noon in the next town. Now, back in the day that wasn't really a big deal. But then came the railroads. Suddenly people were traveling long distances. And trying to coordinate train schedules when every town had a slightly different time became a logistical nightmare. So in 1883, American and Canadian railroads adopted a system of standardized time zones. The US government eventually made standard time a matter of federal law in 1918. And that's an important distinction. Standard time zones and daylight saving time are two different things. But here's a twist. That same 1918 law is also where daylight saving time officially arrived in the United States. Standard Time and Daylight Saving Time showed up together, and the country promptly rebelled against the second part. First, let's clear up one of the biggest misconceptions about daylight saving time. It was not invented for farmers. In fact, farmers were some of its earliest opponents. Animals don't care what time the government says it is. Cows still need to be milked and crops still need to be harvested according to the sun. The idea actually goes back centuries. Benjamin Franklin sometimes gets credit for inventing daylight saving time because of a letter he wrote in 1784 suggesting that Parisians could save money on candles by getting out of bed earlier. But Franklin was joking. He wasn't proposing that anyone actually change their clock. Fast forward to 1907 when a British builder named William Willett started campaigning to move the clocks forward in the summer. He thought people were wasting perfectly good daylight by sleeping through it. But the idea didn't really take hold until World War I. In 1916, Germany adopted daylight saving time to conserve fuel. Other European countries followed, and in 1918, the United States joined in. The thinking was pretty simple. If people had more daylight in the evening, they'd use less artificial lighting and save energy for the war effort. But Americans weren't exactly thrilled. After the war, Congress repealed the daylight saving time law, even overriding President Woodrow Wilson's veto to do it. And that's when things start to get messy. Different cities and states began making their own decisions about whether to change their clocks. For decades, the country had a Patchwork of different time rules. During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt brought back year-round daylight saving time. They actually called it war time. That ended in 1945, and the confusion returned. Eventually, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act of 1966, establishing consistent dates for changing the clocks. And you might think that would have settled things. It did not. Because in nineteen seventy four, the United States decided to try something that might sound familiar today. Permanent daylight saving time. The country was in the middle of an energy crisis, gas prices were rising, fuel supplies were tight, and lawmakers were looking for ways to conserve energy. So in January of nineteen seventy four, most of the country moved its clocks forward with plans to keep them there through the winter. At first, the idea sounded great. Who wouldn't want more daylight in the evening? But then winter arrived. And people discovered what happens when you move an hour of daylight from morning to the evening. The sun comes up really late. In some places, children were headed to school in complete darkness. Parents were concerned about safety, and public enthusiasm for the experiment faded. Congress changed course before the first year was even over, bringing back standard time in October of 1974. So, yes, we've tried permanent daylight saving time before, and it didn't last. Which makes our current debate especially interesting. Now here's where history gets even more entertaining. Arizona looked at the whole daylight saving time idea and basically said, no thanks. In 1968, most of the state stopped observing it. And when you consider just how hot Arizona gets, that actually makes some sense. Who wants another hour of summer sunshine in the evening when it's already over 100 degrees outside? But there's an exception. The Navajo Nation, which extends across Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, does observe daylight saving time. Meanwhile, the Hopi Reservation, which is surrounded by Navajo Nation land in Arizona, does not. So depending on where you're driving, you can cross boundaries and change time without ever leaving the state. Hawaii also skips daylight saving time. Being so close to the equator, its daylight hours don't really change nearly as much throughout the year. And if you think our time rules are confusing, take a look at China. China is geographically wide enough to span about five time zones. But the entire country officially operates on just one, Beijing time. That means in Western China, the sun can rise incredibly late according to the clock. Which is a pretty good reminder that time zones are human inventions. The sun isn't following our rules. And here we are in 2026 still debating what to do about daylight saving time. The United States has adjusted the dates several times. Since 2007, we've been changing our clocks in March and November. But the fundamental argument hasn't changed much. Do we want more daylight in the evening or more daylight in the morning? And more importantly, perhaps, what's better for our bodies? That's the question I explored this week on Atmosphere with Dr. Jamie Zeitzer, a sleep and circadian rhythm researcher at Stanford University. And what I learned is the debate over changing our clocks might be distracting us from some much bigger issues when it comes to sleep and health. We talked about the science behind our internal clocks. how light affects our brains, and some of the everyday habits that may be doing more harm than shifting the clock by an hour. So if you're interested in what science actually says about daylight saving time, check out my full conversation with Dr. Jamie Zeitzer, available now on Atmosphere. I'm meteorologist Emily Gracie, thanks for taking a few minutes to explore a little history with me today.