By JOHN RICHARD SCHROCK
Don’t blame Benjamin Franklin, but he was among the first to value what we today know as Daylight Savings Time (DST). He was 78 years old and serving in 1784 in Paris as the U.S. ambassador. The room attendant closed the blinds at night, but failed to do so. Franklin woke up to the sun brightly lighting his room. He checked his clock and it was only six o-clock in the morning. Everybody was generally asleep for another several hours. And that got him thinking about all of the wasted daylight time.
If the French arose with the sun, they could complete their work and return home to finish the day earlier. That meant that they would also go to bed earlier, and that saved candle-power. And candles were not free. Ben calculated the number of households in France and the number of nights between March 20 and Sept. 20. The annual cost of the wax and tallow per hour saved was equivalent to $200 million dollars today! —Probably an overestimate, but significant. This history is part of the research David Prerau compiles in “Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentions Story of Daylight Saving Time.”
However, action would not be taken until a hardworking housebuilder named William Willett managed to get members of the British Parliament to introduce his DST bill in 1908. Despite support from a young Churchill who promoted an extra yawn in the morning and an extra snooze at night, Willett failed for several years to get daylight savings time adopted.
World War I changed the dynamic. Sleeping through the early morning hours and requiring energy to fuel lights after dark not only constrained working hours but also wasted fuel to generate nighttime lighting. Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II used his emergency powers to command daylight savings time as a wartime measure with penalties for any business that tried to reschedule out of it. Britain saw the savings, stopped bickering and adopted the DST by a vote of 170 to 2.
War was also the impetus for America adopting DST. Most farmers objected because their animals would ignore the change. The railroad did not want to reset 1,698,818 clocks and watches that kept the trains running on time. But it was calculated that DST would provide 910 million hours for home gardening annually, vegetables that would substitute at home for meat needed to feed a million soldiers for six months. War is a powerful argument and daylight savings was adopted in the U.S. on March 15, 1918. But the large farm lobby got DST repealed even before WWI ended.
A few states kept DST as a local option through the Depression. But World War II brought back DST, again to save energy. However, the proportion of the farm population has dramatically shrunk today. And meanwhile, other businesses were finding great benefits from the extra daylight. The golf industry saw increases of $200 million annually. The barbecue grill industry claimed an extra $100 million in annual equipment and charcoal sales. The candy industry got President George W. Bush to extend the duration by four more weeks to include Halloween.
Meanwhile, psychiatrists argued on either side. Some point out that our natural circadian rhythms are set while others believed the extra hours of sunlight helped fight Seasonal Affective Disorders (SAD). More activity during sunlight might reduce car accidents or cut crime. We produce more Vitamin D when we are exposed to more sunlight. But others just don’t like having to change the clock twice a year.
And times change. The cost of nighttime lighting is now reduced with the use of LEDs. But with a warming climate, being active during more of the daytime may increase air conditioning usage which is a greater energy hog.
So far, over 30 states have legislation pending to make DST permanent. Eight states have halted any springing forward, thus keeping that hour of sleep in spring. Changing DST is not a national priority. And the issue is complicated. It is a problem for the states in the mid-latitudes. If you live in Hawaii nearer the equator, the changes in light-dark are minor throughout the year. But at the poles, there can be months of continuous nighttime and then daylight. And then DST is no solution.
It is a problem you might need to sleep on...for one extra hour now.
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John Richard Schrock has trained biology teachers for more than 30 years in Kansas. He also has lectured at 27 universities in 20 trips to China. He holds the distinction of “Faculty Emeritus” at Emporia State University.