Dori Baron, Week 9 - A Brief History of Daylight Saving Time

Hi everyone, welcome to another blog post! Starting November 1st, daylight saving time came to an end, which definitely alarmed me when checking the time and realizing it was one o'clock in the morning twice! With how busy this year has been, I completely forgot daylight saving time even existed. I’ve always wondered why this change in timing even exists, so I did some brief research that I thought I would share with you all.

Daylight saving time first came to mind in 1895 by an entomologist from New Zealand named George Hudson. He thought shifting the time two hours would be a good idea so that he’d have more daylight to go bug hunting during the summer. Then, seven years later, William Willett, a British builder, came up with this same idea of daylight saving while riding a horse. He told the English Parliament about this and tried to convince them to implement this time shift by explaining how it would reduce the waste of daylight, but it was rejected. Later on, in 1916 during World War I, the German government began using daylight saving time in order to save energy and coal. Almost every country fighting in the war, including England, followed Germany in this practice. It was an effective, easy way to save energy.

However, nowadays, daylight saving time is more controversial, a factor being that it arguably no longer saves much energy. The Uniform Time Act gives states, such as Hawaii, most of Arizona, and Puerto Rico, the option to not use daylight saving time. Other places are in the process of opting out of daylight saving time as well, including Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. On the other hand, states like Florida, California, Washington, and Oregon are attempting to remain on daylight saving time during the whole year. 

Personally, I don’t have a strong preference, but if I had to pick, I’d say that I prefer standard time over daylight saving time. This may sound cliche, but I really like having that extra hour to sleep, to get work done, or to relax. Right now, I think there’s no need to have one year-round time standard. I think having this time change is a little exciting and fits well with the seasons: in the spring and summer, we get an extra hour of sunshine, and in the fall and winter, we get an extra hour of the cooler nighttime. These are my opinions on this matter, but let me know what you think of daylight saving time in the comments (which time standard you prefer, and if you would want to get rid of either daylight saving time or standard time as a whole)! 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/03/daylight-savings-time-arizona-florida-spring-forward-science/#close 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/03/tired-of-daylight-saving-time-these-states-trying-to-end-clock-changes/