Daylight Saving Time

The idea of Daylight Saving Time (DST) was conceived by Benjamin Franklin.  In 1783 on a visit to Paris he noticed the French were wasting daylight and wrote the essay, “An Economical Project”.  The essay and idea went unnoticed until 1911 when an English builder named William Willet advocated to the House of Commons the idea of adjusting clocks around the daylight hours.  This idea slowly gained support and by World War I most European countries and the United States used a form of DST in an effort to conserve the fuel needed to produce energy.   

By 1966 over 100 million Americans were observing Daylight Saving Time based on their local laws and customs.  Congress decided to step in and end the confusion by enacting “The Uniform Time Act” which established one time pattern across the country.  Since its introduction this legislation has been revised many times into the policy we now practice.   Currently all of the United States and its territories – except for Hawaii, parts of Arizona, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands – participate in Daylight Saving Time.

Though the idea originally gained popularity with governments as a way to conserve energy, several recent studies have concluded that current energy savings are insignificant.  Why then do we still practice Daylight Saving Time?  Societies around the globe enjoy having longer summer evenings and would rather have an additional hour of daylight in the evening, instead of the morning, during the winter months.