Posted on 03/16/2022 10:08:39 AM PDT by PROCON
The sun rose at 8:27 AM on January 7, 1974. Children in the Washington area had left for school in the dark that morning, thanks to a new national experiment during a wrenching energy crisis: most of the US went to year-round daylight saving time beginning on January 6. “It was jet black” outside when her daughter was supposed to leave for school, Florence Bauer of Springfield told the Washington Post. “Some of the children took flashlights with them.”
The change would benefit Americans in the long run, predicted Steve Grossman of the Department of Transportation. Yes, accidents in the morning darkness may become more common, he said, but longer daylight hours could mean eliminating the hazards of evening commutes: “stress, anxiety, and many drivers have had a couple of drinks,” as he told the Post. Outside the capital, others vowed defiance: Robert Yost, the mayor of St. Francis, Kansas said his town’s council “felt it was time to put our foot down and stop this monkey business.”
Now as the idea of permanent daylight saving time has gained some political momentum, it’s probably worth a look back to another period when the US tinkered with time.
Congress had voted on December 14, 1973, to put the US on daylight saving time for two years. President Nixon signed the bill the next day. The US had gone to permanent daylight saving time before, during World War II. Then, too, the measure was enacted to save fuel. Permanent DST wasn’t close to the wackiest idea about time floating around—Paul Mullinax, a geographer who worked at the Pentagon, came up with the idea of putting the continental US on a single time zone. “USA Time” would apply from Bangor to Barstow, eliminate jet lag, and standardize TV schedules. His idea even got traction in Congress, via a bill from US Representative Patsy Mink of Hawaii. “The human being is a very adaptive animal,” he said. “There is no reason we have to be a slave to the sun.”
And yet the early-morning darkness quickly proved dangerous for children: A 6-year-old Alexandria girl was struck by a car on her way to Polk Elementary School on January 7; the accident broke her leg. Two Prince George’s County students were hurt in February. In the weeks after the change, eight Florida kids were killed in traffic accidents. Florida’s governor, Reubin Askew, asked for Congress to repeal the measure. “It’s time to recognize that we may well have made a mistake,” US Senator Dick Clark of Iowa said during a speech in Congress on January 28, 1974. In the Washington area, some schools delayed their start times until the sun caught up with the clock.
The factual picture was a bit more complicated. The National Safety Council reported in February that pre-sunrise fatalities had risen to 20 from 18 the year before. In July, Roger Sant, then an assistant administrator-designate for the Federal Energy Administration, wrote a letter to the Post that noted a 1 percent energy saving achieved by going to DST equated to 20,000-30,000 tons of coal not being burned each day. Further, he wrote, accidents had fallen in the afternoons.
By August, though, as the Watergate scandal caused the Nixon administration to crumble, the country was ready to move on from its clock experiments. While 79 percent of Americans approved of the change in December 1973, approval had dropped to 42 percent three months later, the New York Times reported. Seven days after President Nixon resigned, US Senator Bob Dole of Kansas introduced an amendment in August that would end the DST experiment. It passed. A similar bill passed the House. In late September, the full Congress passed a bill that would restore standard time on October 27. President Ford signed it on October 5. Energy savings, a House panel noted, “must be balanced against a majority of the public’s distaste for the observance of Daylight Saving Time.”
Railroad time!
My Great-Grandfather saw it the same way. He never changed his clocks. “I’m leaving them on God’s time.”
Let’s eliminate time zones all together! Let’s go to “Sun Time”! That way, noon in Nashville and noon in Memphis would be fifteen minutes apart!
“Anyone remember?”
No.
“We always awoke in the dark...............”
Because you Jarheads had your heads where it was dark. :)
Go back to Standard Time, then people could whine about it getting dark earlier in the evening. Lots easier to change school hours, I’d think.
“I remember walking the quarter mile to catch the school bus with a flashlight.”
Around here the bus stops at a house, kids get out, the bus moves 150ft up the road, more kids get out. In town, the bus stops at the house next door to the school, kids get in, then the bus pulls into the school. Then there is the fleet of cars and vans for kids that are too incorrigible to ride the bus.
The grain doesn’t care what time it is, your postulating that DST was for the farmer is complete and utter nonsense.
DST was brought in so that factories and cities used less artificial lighting (including gas lighting, kerosene lanterns, and candles) during the FIRST world war.
It had less than NOTHING to do with farmers, who are up before the sun most of the time even today.
And maybe "Airbaths"
I don’t have a problem at all with half hour time zones.
People can learn to live with it and adjust their schedules. They are not stupid. Just lazy.
But sunrise at 4 AM is just too early.
We need to end the Anglo-chrono-heterodoxy!
Rotate GMT to other nations on a yearly basis!
Yeah, kids don't seem to know what their feet are for anymore.
We did all kinds of risky things in the 70s. One on the kids' moms would let the five or six of us ride on the hood of her car sometimes on the walk back from the bus stop at the end of the day.
Franklin was only being satirical when he wrote about Parisians being encouraged to get up with the sun and save on oil at night. He never actually proposed changing clocks.
Apparently it was a New Zealand entomologist, George Hudson, who proposed the time change. He wanted not just one but two more hours of light to hunt for insects. This was back in 1895. Hey, if we’re going for one, why not two or even three? Time-pikers!
In 1902, Englishman William Willet proposed 4 incremental time changes during April and reversed in September to Parliament, because he wanted more time for building houses (keep in mind, this wasn’t about how his workers felt about working in the summer heat). Happily, even though Winston Churchill liked the idea, Parliament wisely said no. Imagine 4 time changes in one month!
It wasn’t until Germany put it into practice after WWI (an attempt to save lives), that England and every other country which participated in WWI hopped on the DST bandwagon. Germany lost the first big land-grab but managed to win the war over all of its previous enemies’ circadian rhythms. Masterful! Btw, were there adverse affects on Dr. Who’s time travels?
Back to the USA. The sun rises and sets about the same time every day in Hawaii, which is why they gave up on DST. Arizona has plenty of daylight hours anyway and likes to have some of them during cooler temperatures which is why parts of that state don’t observe it. AZ also has two time zones. Must be fun doing business there.
Notice how not one of the serious time-change proponents had anything to do with agriculture. Farmers and ranchers are usually working either with or against the sun. Clocks don’t matter to animals that need milking. In hot states, morning hours tend to be cooler than late afternoon hours. When would you want to do the physical labor that has to be done outside?
Aside from all the pros and cons and my personal preference for standard time, I am grateful for DST on 9/11/2002. For once, it, in combination with regular time zones, did save thousands of lives all in the space of a few hours since the jihadists miscalculated their optimum time of destruction and murder. Since that mistake is unlikely to happen again, let’s return to giving the sun and our inner clocks their due time-wise.
How do ya move a barn?
He lived on a curve in the road where the north/south line was drawn for DST
His house was west of the curve and his barn was east of it
What choice was he supposed to have? It’s not like he was complaining
I was just pointing out an oddity about time zones
When does solar noon occur?
I remember that. Biggest problem that arose was that it was dark when the kids were waiting for their school bus. Not very well thought out at all.
It really depends on whether you’re on the east side or west side of the time zone.
I would think those on the east side will like it.
I have no idea.
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