Show of hands: who’s excited to “fall back” this Sunday? Some think the illusion of an extra hour of sleep is completely worth it. While others bemoan the fact that it starts getting dark at 4:30 p.m.
Daylight sayings time has a contentious 227 year old history that didn’t begin in the U.S. and has many theories as to why it exists. How many of you said it exists for the farmers or for school kids?
According to Congressional Research, daylight savings was originally put in place to give people more daylight hours to work and do other activities. Conceived by Benjamin Franklin in 1784 at the time when he was Minister to France, Franklin felt it was only natural that when it was dark outside, more people would be sleeping and that extending daytime hours according to season would increase productivity.
William Willet proposed that daylight savings time be adopted in British Parliament because doing work and other activities in daylight hours would reduce demand on artificial light. Germany began observing daylight savings to conserve fuel during World War I.
The U.S. went through a lot of back-and-forth regarding daylight savings. The practice was adopted in 1918, abolished for unpopularity after WWI and reinstated during WWII — at this time it was called War Time and took place year round. Several states maintained daylight savings after this ended but it caused much angst to the transportation industry that pushed for uniformed timezones. After the Uniform Time Act of 1966 was passed, states could choose to participate in daylight savings, but the whole state had to adhere to the decision, but now states can split if they are also split according to time zone.
Aside from fuel and energy savings, safety of children headed to school, better operating hours for farmers and the fact that people just like long summer days have been used as popular reasons for daylight savings. Although it seems to have all these positive effects, a 2009 Michigan State University study correlated the time change in favor of summer hours with an increase in workplace injuries. The study found that workers slept about 40 minutes less per night during daylight swings.
Arizona, Hawaii, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands don’t participate in daylight savings. Indiana used to be split, but opted for daylight savings in 2005. Arizona, for example, doesn’t observe daylight savings due to its extreme heat, which would negate any energy savings by lengthening an already hot day.
(Liz Klimas, The Blaze)
