DST is the farthest thing on our minds till the dreaded day is finally upon us. On Sunday, March 10, 2013 at 2:00 AM, clocks were set forward 1 hour. All of us know to do it, many of us dread it, but most of us don’t know why it’s done. The history of DST is widely misinterpreted. Here are three things you didn’t know about DST.


1. Who is to blame - The long standing tradition of DST has been accredited to a number of people with suitable evidence supporting all parties. Benjamin Franklin, the first of these, may be the most well-known, though he is the least responsible for the change. Franklin simply proposed that people rise earlier in the mornings, as opposed to changing the actual time. Many believe that he deserves credit for DST because he was the first to discover, or openly discuss, that the sun did not rise at the same hour every morning. One morning, Franklin awoke at 6 a.m. in his Paris home to find bright sunlight streaming through his window; he had this to say of the ordeal in a letter he wrote to Paris Journal’s authors:
“Yet it so happens, that when I speak of this discovery to others that they do not quite believe me. One, indeed, who is a learned natural philosopher, has assured me that I must certainly be mistaken as to the circumstance of the light coming into my room; for it being well known, as he says, that there could be no light abroad at that hour…”. Franklin was shocked and excited to have discovered the sun was above the horizon so early. In his letter to the Paris Journal, he begins to discuss his idea of waking early. He speaks of its benefit on the economy, lessening the expense of oil for candles if more day light can be utilized.

The second person to be accredited with DST is an entomologist named George Vernon Hudson, of New Zealand. Hudson wrote a paper that he acquiesced to the Wellington Philosophical Society, proposing a 2 hour shift of time in October, and then a two hour shift backward in March. He wrote an article in 1898 that further explained his interest in changing time. Unfortunately there were very few people that took interest, and the idea never stuck.

The last person to be attributed with DST, and the one that deserves the most credit, is William Willet. William Willett was an Englishman that fought for the clocks to be turned forward 80 minutes between April and October. William Willet titled his idea, “Summer Time”. Willett conveyed his ideas to the British Parliament year after year; he was shot down each time. He died in 1951 at the age of 58. Willet was unable to see his ideas come to fruition. Through a man named Robert Pearce, a bill was written with Willet’s ideas, and was submitted to the House of Commons in 1908.

2. Why wasn’t it enacted - Many people believe that in the United States, DST was enacted to benefit farmers. This is untrue. Common sense would tell us that farmers rely on the sun to work in the fields, so naturally a change in time would be beneficial. But the changing of the clocks greatly hurt farmers and disrupted their work. When the clocks were officially turned back on March 31, 1818, for war reasons, farmers were disrupted and very annoyed. Farmers went about their days in the fields according to the sun, never the clock! Every morning the farmers would wait approximately one hour to begin their work. They utilized the sun’s ability to evaporate the dew on their fields. Their hired help, market runs, and transporting of goods were negatively impacted by this change in time. The time change permitted hired hands to work fewer hours, and for the work on the farm to be delayed consistently. Agriculturist interest brought about the 1919 repeal of national daylight saving time. DST was indeed a nuisance to farmers. Urban businesses prospered far more because of DST than rural businesses.

3. Who springs forward and falls back - Finally, DST is not recognized by the whole world! Approximately 70 countries turn their clocks forward and back. This accounts for only about a fourth of the world’s population. American states Hawaii and Arizona do not recognize DST. Some Amish communities do not turn their clocks back, and the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands also continue on standard time.