Did you know?
This happens twice every year.
I run through the house, and find every clock and either move it an hour forward, or an hour backward.
Modern technology, it seems, has given us clocks everywhere.
Cable boxes, ovens (microwave and conventional), pictures, computers and in our cars.
My only fear is that each fall and early spring, I’ll forget to adjust the only timepiece I truly depend on – my wristwatch.
It wasn’t always this way. Until WWI, there were no time zones, and there was no such thing as Daylight Saving Time.
Every clock in America was (roughly) set to the same hour and minute.
During WWI, Germany and Austria began the practice of saving fuel and daylight, by instituting DST in April of 1916.
The United States followed suit in March of 1918. But DST was so unpopular, the law that enabled it was repealed in 1919.
Daylight Saving Time was re-instituted on a national bases during WWII. It started on Feb. 9, 1942 and it ended on Sept. 30, 1945.
The need to save fuel and sunlight nationally, just wasn’t that important after the end of the war.
That meant local governments could, if they opted to, institute Daylight Saving Time, but there was no national law that gave any semblance of uniform times.
How, then, could the “trains run on time,” when they’d travel from one locality to another, when there could easily be differing timetables?
It’s been noted that, at one time, on a bus ride over the 35 miles between Moundsville, W.Va. and Steubenville, Ohio, bus drivers could encounter seven different time changes.
Something had to be done. The federal government stepped in to bring unity to the nation’s disparate time considerations.
On April 12, 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act, which set-up a system where times would be the same in each time zone, and for Daylight Saving Time to be observed (except where states passed laws to the contrary), in April and October of each year.
In 1986, another law mandated that Daylight Saving Time would begin at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of each April, and end on the last Sunday of each October.
In 2007, thanks to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the dates were changed to the second Sunday in March (DST), and the first Sunday in November for Standard Time.
This column might not seem very “timely,” since Daylight Saving Time this year took place on March 10.
But wait. 75 years ago, on May 3, 1938, Uniontown’s city fathers voted unanimously to institute Daylight Saving Time on their own.
It didn’t go over well.
In fact, it set off a county-wide furor that would later be described as “one of the most-discussed measures in years.”
“All clocks will be turned up one hour at midnight, Saturday, May 7,” said the article on the front page of the Wednesday morning’s Uniontown Morning Herald.
Later that day, a meeting was held between Uniontown’s merchants, who were said to be aligned against the new “fast time” change, and Mayor William J. Crow, and the city councilman who had proposed the time change.
“It will create confusion in traveling, communication and appointments since all other cities, towns and communities in this area will observe Eastern Standard Time,” said a letter submitted to the mayor.
On Friday the Morning Herald carried the bold headline: “Council turns deaf ear to pleas; endorse ‘fast’ time.”
There’d been a special meeting the night before, and despite opposition from merchants, church leaders and even coal miners who feared that if stores closed earlier, they would be prevented from shopping in Uniontown after their daily shifts, because stores would already be closed.
“Do you think everyone would go to Connellsville if we adopted this new plan?” asked Mayor Crow.
“I think so, to a certain extent, history has proved that very conclusively,” replied an attorney representing a number of merchants and private citizens.
On Saturday morning, with only hours before the clocks were to have been moved ahead at midnight, the Morning Herald reported that “widespread opposition” to the time change had been voiced by “110 merchants, business and professional men, all Uniontown churches, schools and others.”
On Monday morning, the Morning Herald reported that city government had moved its clocks forward, but hardly anybody else had.
On Tuesday, May 10, it was reported that, while Masontown had gone ahead and passed its version of Daylight Saving Time, both Brownsville and Connellsville refused to follow suit.
By Thursday, May 12, the Morning Herald reported that Masontown had backed out of its plan to institute DST but there was more.
“Uniontown Council To Reconsider Fast Time; May Rescind,” was the headline above that story.
There was a chance the whole thing could be reversed on May 24 – nearly two weeks later.
But on May 18, it was reported that Uniontown’s City Council hadn’t waited that long. “Council rescinds fast time order, effective today,” read the headline for the simple, four paragraph story, which contained an unusually frank sub-headline. “‘City Fathers,’ Realizing ‘Error of their Ways,’ Accede to the Wishes of the Majority.”
I like that.