First debated, i rid keel skull then embraced the possibility of saving an hour of lay diagnose. No one can say for sure why were required by law to change our clocks twice a year. Who first proposed the scheme . The most authoritative sources suggest was a pittsburgh industrialist, woodrow wilson, mon an horse in london, manhattan socialite, Benjamin Franklin. One of the caesars are the anonymous makers of japanese and chinese water clocks. Toy prisoning forward is a portrait of pock policy in 20th century, perennial boiling caldron of unsubstantiated science, mysteriously shifting time zone boundaries. A special comedy with congress in at the leading roll. Surrounded by a support cast of opportunistic ministers, movie moguls, stock both brokers, sports fanatics and railroad executives, Michael Downing this author of four novels including breakfast with scott and shoes outside the door, a history of the scandal that rocked the San Francisco center. He teaches creative writing at Tufts University join me in welcoming michael doning to the odyssey book shop. [applause] thank you, joan, thank you all for turning up and i just do want to start by saying, its rare to feel at home in the world and im so grateful to the odyssey and other independent book stores in america that make writers and readers feel at home so thank you, joan. This book really did begin when i had my finger in the face of my clock, and i look at myself and thought, what are you doing . And i thought i have no idea. I knew one thing but Daylight Saving time and that was simple. We do it for the farmers. And i thought, how aim assists american agriculture by turning back and forward the hand of my clock eave year. So i asked some friends. They thought we did it for the farmers, few of the them actually told me it was a government scheme. That why the federal government. Ten minutes of research taught me what it would teach you. The farm he were the group most opposed to Daylight Saving time in the country. They hate it strom the start. Farmers ugly used morning light. Lets say they had three hours to get their eggs, milk and produce to at the city markets. They needed the sunlight to do that. You turn the clock ahead by an hour now they have two hours to do the same work. So how did i end up with the myth that farmer wanted Daylight Saving . What was the truth of Daylight Saving . Those are the questions that drove the book. Its an old story, the problem of trying to control daylight. We all know that the amount of daylight changes almost every day. And every culture has tried to deal with this fact. But the modern story of Daylight Saving will begin now and well delve into the deep dark history later. The modern story bins in london with a man on a horse in 1980. He is riding through london at sunrise, and he notices that everyone has their curtains drawn. And it occurs to him this is a fantastic waste of a natural resource. And he thought, if you took that hour of sunlight and gave it to people in the afternoon instead of blocking it out they would use it and spend it outside. Imimportantly while it was an architect but to this story a golfer. Its the modern story of golf in some ways, Daylight Saving. No kidding. So willity proposed as a member of parliament, a law to save daylight and hes immediately laughed out of the parliament. People think this is the most preposterous and student idea they ever heard. Within ten years britain is at bar and theyre looking around for ways to save energy, and willits becomes popular. Theres no evidence whatsoever that Daylight Saving will save anyone anything but the british decide theyre going to try it. So in 1916, after almost ten years of public debate and ridicule the British Parliament enacts a law for the following spring. And as luck would have it the germans perform a sneak attack. They pass Daylight Saving without any legislation and beat the british to the punch. One british newspaper in germany says we in the the british have debating it for a decade but as usual were unable to rous themselves to a decision. Its the war that brings the Daylight Saving to america but not the first time we heard of it. The rae still or daylight civic in america agains with chamber of commerce. Big Department Stores, the principal Economic Force in america in 1910 to 10930 want Daylight Saving time. Heres why. People are working regular hours, they stop shopping during the day. The Department Stores figure if you give the people extra light in the after work hours, their windows will be lit up, they will iraq by a and people will go in and shop. Daylight saving has never been authoritatively proved to save anyone any significant amount of energy, but it has proved itself to be the most significantly useful spending plan in American History. It is part of what accounts for its tremendous popularity. However, people really didnt like fiddling with their clocks. In world war i comes, america manages to get aDaylight Saving lie. Wilson desperatery want its and push this congress to do it. It is so fast,ly controversial and unpopular that as the war ends, the first thing Congress Acts on before it passes the treaty of versailles is the repeal of Daylight Saving of cant stand it. That should have been the end of the story. That is when america went off daily saving, 1919. Had it two years. There was only one state, every state legislature repeals their own laws as well and only new york state is by 1919 has a Daylight Saving law and everybody who supports Daylight Saving knows itself will not stand. So, in 1919, in a really remarkable moment in a story that really is untold, new york city passes a city ordinance, and it says were going to move our clocks despite what the rest of the country is doing. And i just want to read you a little bit from spring forward to pick up the history there. And then we can talk but whatever we want. The big apple had taken a shine to Daylight Saving. If the hadnt happened resident odd north america would be permanently spared the annual stem winding ritual. Daylight saving had been flatly rejected by the congress and every state house. In 1919, canada got rid of the law. Mexico reship idea from the start. With 1920 the federal state provincial and county governments in north america had disavowed and discontinued the practice of Daylight Saving, yet, year after year, americans are told, as they were told by the none republic as recently also 1989, the history of Daylight Saving is a textbook example of our tolerance of meddling by government in what is none of its business. More than a few people were meddling with time in new york. But they didnt work for the government. Trey was a word for what they were doing and began with the letter a but it was not apple. The wore on the street in new york was arbitrage. When the clocks in inning land sprang ahead, the board of managers of. The new york stock changed urged the passage of a Daylight Saving law, explaining to the in the New York Times it would lead to increased opportunity for arbitrage. In fact without daylight save the commodity public oklahoma and bond trader quds expect no tort for arbitrage aft all. Arbitrage is buying and selling secures on one market for immediate resale on another market at that advantageous primes that is, easy money. Trading on the london stock change end daily at 3 00 p. M. Trading on the new york stock change begin at 9 00 a. M. The established opening hour for most banks. Standard time has established a fivehour time difference between london and new york. When it was 9 00 a. M. In new york, it was 2 00 p. M. In london. This preserved one hour of trading for arbitrage. Then london sprang ahead by an hour. So, when the new york stock change opened, it was 9 00 p. M. But 3 00 p. M. In london, and london was closed. Daylight saving, saved new yorks most precious hour. Money makes men bolt. And 25 march 1920 the stock exchanges in boston and philadelphia announces their intention to cop form to the new Daylight Hours of new york. On the same day clevelands traders became daylight saver, even though clocks in the cleveland stock change were the only team pieces in the city to move one hour head and before the night fell on chicago in the central time zone good normally one hour behind new york the board of governorrers of the exchange voted to fix the hours of trading from 8 00 a. M. Until such time also the Daylight Saving law was adopted there. A week later all the banks in chalk opted to open early rather than lag behind two hours behind he big apple. Business under this condition is impossible. In june of 1920 the Chicago City Council passioned a Daylight Saving ordinance. That autumn, after chicagos clocks had been turn back to Central Standard time, sam carden was convicted of murdering another resident of the winny city and sentenced to die on 15 april 1921. His fate generated a lot of newspaper copy before and after this execution. His fellow again members convinces him to go on a Hunger Strike in prison, and he reportedly lost more than 50 pounds. Not as a matter of principle but as a matter of gravity. His former associates figured sam wouldnt die if he was hanged as a bantam weight. No kidding. And they could claim his limp body from the gallow requests resuscitate him. Instead on the big day sam fainted. And Ernest Hemingway suggested in which sam soils him as the noose is lowered around his neck but in the big am the moral of the story warts reported by New York Times. Opt wednesday morning, sam woke up with a question. When aim going to be hanged . He asked the assistant jailer, who is no kidding named lawrence mosten heim. Inned morning at 8 00. He says. Central, standard, or chicago time, said sam . Chicago time, replied the jailer, its in chicago time youll be hanged. Yes, said sam, but is was sentenced before the time was changed. This rearrangement deprives me of one hour of life. That wont mean anything after im dead but wilma mean a lot of friday morning. Jail officials changed the hanging time to 9 00 chicago time. There were some new yorkers who grew apples and what the hard working farmers farmers and hare Rural Community of new york state want in 1920 was relief. Travel and trade were complicate with the them diveses with neighboring states to the grange, the farm bury hey the dares aremen association with lobbying the legislature in albany for repeal of. The state law. This estimated the confusion instance creased farmer cost bid 10 to 25 and limited product different. Suffering under the last statewide day late saving lie in the country has not improved the mood of new yorks farm erred and they predicted that new yorks milk supply would dry up by midaugust. The price of eggs would rise to 3 a dozen, and the farmers said the knocker state faces a food famine during which the farmer will look after himself first let the city people wait. It was february 1921. The fate of. The statewide law was obvious to everyone in albany. Unless the heavens opened up and sent forth a messenger to inform lawmakers that god switched sides in the debate the last statewide Daylight Saving lie was doomed. Enter royal copeland, new York City Health commissioner help came bearing typhus, smallpox, tb, plague, and 133,000 babies, 133,000 babies, he said; born in new york last year. You put those little shavers shoulderrer to shoulder and they would reach 22 miles. Were they bon oregon fifth avenue and riverside dried . They were. No over 100,000 of the babies were born in tenements of new york. You multiply that by ten years and you have a million. The health of the children and the mothers and all of the boys and girls of new york city depends upon having the sunlight and fresh air they get so they been taken out of the miserable tenements where the live without light of ventilation, he went 0, i wouldnt want to take the responsibility of walking up to the great white throne and being asked did you do anything which result inside infant deaths in new york . Royal copelands speech was a barnburner and in the light of his righteous passion, anyone could see that Daylight Saving was on the side of the angels. Copeland was reward with a see net u. S. Senate. The farmers were not moved. They had babies of their own, they said and they could barely feed them. The assemblymen in new york repealed the new york state daylight save law and in 1921, all that was standing between new york city and darkness was a local ordinance. But new york was not alone. In the spring of 1921, the Washington Post reported they Daylight Saving would in be in effect in most of the large cities and Industrial Centers in northern section of the eastern time zone the majority of the but as far as reports or obtainable not florida effect in the southern or western states. Some americans called this progress. Others called it the disintegration of standard time. Every want call the opening federal government to intercede. The lesson of the whole business declared the north American Review, obviously is that congress should exercise its constitutional power and perform its constitutional duty of prescribing uniform team measurements and reckonings for the whole country. But this would not happen for 45 years. The worldwide organizing principle of time, time zones and the literal meaning of standard time were all but lost in america. At the annual meeting the beginning committee of the new york stock change the members resolved to open and close the exchange to the absolutely nonstandard standard of new york city time. This sort of talk but new jersey in an uneven veriable position. The new Jersey State Senate rejected a Daylight Saving bill. This left thousands of residents, wrote the times in a badly tangled state of affairs writ will be possible for a commuter living 45 minutes from new york city to reach his home 15 minutes before he started. By the summer of 19 21 virtually all cities and industrial towns in gashedden state passed local ordinances, most of the rest of coat did not follow sued. Thus in april 1921 at the elected member of the Connecticut Assembly were deposit monday hartford one hour before. The appointed opening of the legislative session because the timetable had been altered to conform to new york city time. Lawmakers had an hour to kill on the benches in the park so they discussed measures of punishment for hartford. In may, they proposed a 25 fine for officials who countenanced Daylight Saving. Two years later, they upped the ante and passed a new law which stipulated that the pentagon public display of a time piece running on other than standard time, including the average citizens wristwatch, shall be he illegal. Violators face fines up to 100 or ten days in prison or both. Lawmaker inside New Hampshire were so impressed with connecticut fine that they soon crafted a bill prohibiting Daylight Saving anywhere in the state and violators face ed a hundred fine. New hampshire enjoyed a geographic and Economic Situation op almosting a uneven have iable as new jersey. The entire agreement state was a whistleston on the Boston Railroad. After that the railroad revised thrill time tables to conform to clocks in boston, passengers and freight trains blew through an hour earlier than anticipated and didnt stop to pay a fine. Boston had not merely followed new yorkies lead. In 1921, Boston Railroad through the Massachusetts Legislature the only statewide Daylight Saving law school in the nation. It lasted for ten years as the only statewide Daylight Saving law. This laugh that state farmers blamed for millions of losses and the complaint became the basis for the appeal which made today the u. S. Supreme court. For severallese the National Grange rad been angling for this fight, and at it convention in pittsburgh in 1923 the grange elected masters from ten northeastern states to agitate against existing daylight laws. In 1926, the test case made it to the u. S. Supreme court. The court ruled against the grange. Smithing the proposition that massachusetts farmers were owed compensation, the court articulated the principle that put Daylight Saving will within the purview of any state. The Supreme Courts majorityman was delivered by he justice ol her ven del holmes. A native of boston. At the spring of 1928 more than 25 million americans and 16 states were observing Daylight Saving. Most of the participating cities adopted a five month schedule but no end to the variation is. Vermont waited until the last sunday in may to advance the clocks. Auburn, america, three myung folts midjune to mo midseptember. Named, indiana launch evidence its history in 1928 in indianapolis, the city Council Passed a Daylight Saving ordinance. The mayor knicksed it. The stiff council jordan rode the reto. The banks and Retail Stores an efforts the change. The Public School its ignored it. Half. The citys manufacturing plants went on to Daylight Saving. Detroit had been recalibrating the clocks for so long and in such inventive ways that no one in the country knew what time it was in those fame fours ford automobile factories. The motor city gradually transformed itself from a central time zone city into an eastern time zone city observing Daylight Saving, twohour clock change which accounts to detroits factually late summer sunsets. The summer sun doesnt sunset detroit almost 10 00 at night etch the usual chaos of standard and Daylight Saving time again prevails in american complained the northern American Review in the summer of 16928 and will recure everyee until congress summons the gumption to perform is duty to put an end to at the foolishness. The United States congress, twice passed and repealed a national Daylight Saving act by 1948. State legislatures actually entertain new Daylight Saving legislation and new or stricter fines and prohibitions against it. Major League Baseball was pitted against the moviemakers in hollywood, the Supreme Court had ruled decisively but fueled the controversy rather than quelling it. That one one accountable hour has consumed a lot of energy. It has become a burning political, religious, and financial issue, and as any wildfire will, it took its toll. By 1965, after the debate hat royal roiled for more than 50 years, word came from the u. S. Naval laboratory the most eminent and strategically significant center for at the calibration of time in the done trip that the disexception over Daylight Saving made the world residents greatest economic and military super power the world residents worst time keeper. All this and Richard Nixon waiting in the wings. Thats the beginning of the insane story that i really had no idea existed. My favorite part about the confusion is how it has managed to invert not only every idea i received as a child and carried forward as an adult but has confused almost every politician and business person who has touched it. People have switched side on this debate more than any other debate ive seen. So if anyone has a question or a place of confusion where we could begin id be happy to i have a recent experience. Great. Was on easter weekend i was visiting an island in spain, and i happened to have an accident where i fractured my foot, and the next day i had to go to a larger island on a boat. And already my daughter and i were very confused. Our spanish was very, very rusty. We couldnt keep track of what time the restaurants were closed or open or the siestas, on or off or what brand of tourist was there because we heard that the restaurants changed whether they were italian tourists of french. Didnt know how to use telephones. We were not quite used to the euro, and so we finally get it together to get to the ferry on time and we found out that the ferry had left an hour earlier because in spain, they begin Daylight Saving time a week earlier than in this country. So i was aware that the following week be Daylight Saving but wasnt aware of that. So, just a little its terrific. Uniformity was supposed to be the goal. Why the Congress Current idea it should give us two more months of Daylight Saving is into preposterous. One of the early objections to Daylight Saving came from preachers and clerics who considered it a way of taking us off of sun time who they called gods time and putting us on clock time. Of course we had already been taken off the sun by the railroads when we got time zones but there was a kind of attachment to standard time also gods time. Didnt help that the very first sunday we sprang ahead was an easter sunday. A lot of people were late for church, making their preachers hopping mad. A very good natured suppress in florida said, its funny that there are late in the spring but when we fall backwards aen hour no one is ever early to church. Can you explain the fact that when youre down under were no australia and they went to Daylight Saving time. However, when we are coming in this is on october 31st now, were coming into standard time, theyre going keeping the same time as we are, the same time span but temperature daylight their time is going longer, you see. So, how do you explain this how can be reckon to consolidate this discrepancy. A big problem of having two hemispheres, a north and south. Does throw off a lot of things. They invert the date some spring forward when we fall back and the opposite. In arizona, resize, queensland has been a big resistant to day highlight saving. Took a long time to spread through europe. This british have so little sun that any chance they might get a few minutes seem like good social policy to them. But it confused australia was very resistant in the way that canada was, back and forth for a while with Daylight Saving. And the odd thing is the countries embraced it early on were the ones that got. Thes into the worst confusion. One of the rowley Amazing Stories about Daylight Saving time begins in 1930, in the soviet union. Joseph stalin is part of his brutal tithe year plans is trying to control not just the clocks bit the calendars. Stalin reinvented the calendar a couple of time sod instant wont have seven days bruce he doesnt want workers to have two days off so the try this five day week with no weekends and they didnt work. Tried a sixdave week. Didnt work. In 1930 he made all of russias spring forward in april. So he made every turn the clocks ahead. And unfortunately, in october he froth to tell them to fall back. Im not making this up. 61 years. Every clock in soviet union was off because of the confusion over Daylight Saving time. It has confounded the world. Its also a lovely idea of what we think of as the precision of the 20th century and the punishing precision of clock time, this constantly defeats and undermines. It does force us to look and think, clock time is its a veneer you can put your finger through and realize if you can lose or gain an hour, its hard to ail veil your time the way before you knew that. We took time to go to australia, one of these confusing times and takes two hours longer to go the other time. That. Thats exactly right. No wonder i get so tired. Makes people tired more thinking about it than the actual time change itself. Thats the exhaustion. What was wilson so intent on getting Daylight Saving time . Thats great. A couple of reasons wilson liked it. Wilson was a fanatic golfer. Genuinely fanatic. Used to spend hours out in back of the white house. He had his golf balls painted black in the winter so he could golf in the snow. I dont want to say it was only golf but golf plays a big partner story. Wilson also was a big fan and a big supporter of and supported by the chambers of commerce. So he wanted Daylight Saving on behalf of the chamber of commerce but couldnt get the country to accept it. I it was really under the guys of day thought saving. In world were 2 we dont have a national law. The chamber of commerce inside greater friend than franklin roosevelt. This may be a familiar temperature to all of you. Every story i dug up seems completely lunatic and unbelievable and new to me but heres one. Roosevelt so loved the chamber of commerce that he changed the day of thanksgiving. The this is a little surprising. He moved thanksgiving back a week to make it instead of the fourth thursday in november, the third so that the chamber all the Department Stores would have an extra week of christmas shopping. It was explicit. That wasnt a hidden plan it created so much confusion, machs as Daylight Saving, that there were tallies on which states were celebrating thanksgiving on which date for these year running. A fantastic failure as a retail policy, but love so thats how much roosevelt favored the chambers of commerce. He couldnt get the country to accept Daylight Saving, though he desperately wanted it. So when world war ii comes and we get the bombing of pearl harbor he seizes the opportunity but even at that point on the cusp of war he can call it Daylight Saving time its so unpopular so he qualifies it wartime. And he put this country on wartime. They stay on it for three years, and as soon as world war ii is over, vj day, congress does not again move on the declaration of end of war with japan but instead votes to repeal Daylight Saving time. Its that unpopular. So, thats really the wilson story fits in with the Department Stores. Why do so many people think the farmerred had something to do with is. A great question. A couple of answers to that. One is, anyone who got mixed up in the death saving debate Daylight Saving debate no one got mixed up more prominent live than the farmer, end end up in the popular imagination on the opposite side of where they began. So there realist just the confusion over Daylight Saving and peoples inability to know if when you spring forward do you lose or gain an hour. I cant keep that in my head so theres a simple confusion with time but theres another more pertinent reason. Particularly in ma the found or he Department Stores was one of earliest and most important proponents of Daylight Saving. He was so keen on have the country adopt Daylight Saving he wrote a pamphlet in 1917 which became the basis of adopting it. Among his 52 reasons which he eely date ford why the country 52 so great should adopt Daylight Saving time, among them were things like farmers will it will be good for farmer to get their crops to market faster because theyll have time for other work. He had at least seven of the reasons that became very public were effectively telling us how important this was for agriculture in the country. So thats where the confusion begins. He said which seemed kind of romantic that there will beer in dew on the crops and that makes them more peasing. People like to buy more ample theyd dewy. Not making this up. This was genuine news to farm end who begged to differ. You cant harvest cereal and grain when it has dew on it. And if one year you have sunrise at 6 00 and the nextyear at 7 00 you have now got an hour extra to wait for the sun to come up and dry your crops. It bass disaster for farmers but lincoln in this pamphlet starts a truly worldwide way of talking about Daylight Saving which is say the opposite of what it true. And the whole debate becomes a series of mistakes, misspoke spoken things and deliberate misrepresentations. Its an amazing public debate. Growing up in 50s i was toll do we walked to school debitor was about us. That we wouldnt have to walk in the dark. Want have to walk in the dark. Yeah. I just love this. That a country. Thats so great. The School Children issue first emerges during world war ii because were on all year Daylight Saving for three years, the first time we have Daylight Saving in the winter months. Here what that means in a place like michigan. Normally with standard time, the sun doesnt rise in Southern Michigan until 8 30. Or 8 15 or 8 30. You push that clock ahead you have 9 15 sunrise. Well you put children on the street, theyre in pitch blackness so na fact the problem was Daylight Saving forced children on to dark streeted but we thought they were doing it for the 0 reason. This comes up again in a very big way in 1974 when richmond Richard Nixon decided he going to use Daylight Saving to stem the opec oil embargo. There are couple of thing about this. Nixon is one of the most outopinion jims dissenter of Daylight Saving becomes the first pea time president item pose it on the country. Typical of the star. Everybody has to switch sides two or three times to be valid in the debate. Richard nixon puts people on Daylight Saving in january, and the country goes nuts. Many of you probably remember either walking to schooling when it wag dark or the picture that flashed across the country there began to be within two or three days of being put on the a few bus School Bus Accidents and a couple of School Children are killed. That was enough for the country to reject all year Daylight Saving. Nixons plan went right down the tubes. Its notable that 40 to 60,000 americans die every year in vehicular accidents. We were talking something between 2 and 20 additional deaths. Not clearly attributable to Daylight Saving but the residual displeasure with Daylight Saving was to profound that the country went off it and nixon lost the battle. It has a history around the world of not being loved and partly because its often imposed on populations. The United States didnt have a Daylight Saving law after world war2. We go to japan, and we impose Daylight Saving on japan. The japanese to this day never adopted Daylight Saving. They have quioto protocol call for Daylight Saving, it was signed . Japan. They know they have to do it. The hatred that exists from world war ii and he imposition of Daylight Saving time by the american is it what withholds japans support for Daylight Saving to this day. South korea never had Daylight Saving. We occupied south korea and put them on Daylight Saving time. It has a very unpleasant precedent. Hitler did something which i didnt know nil started to read the history. He imposed on every country he went into something he liked to call hitler time. He changed the clocks of every nation to correspond to the clocks in berlin. And it was a way of humiliating the locals and saying you cant even control your own clocks. This is an ongoing use of time which is a small part of the story but fascinating. China, a country which is a geographically the same eastern to west boundaries in terms of kiss stance as the United States. China has one time zone. It ignores its time zones. Everybody lives on beijing time. So the sun in fare western china rises at 12 30 or 1 00 in the afternoon. Every day of the year. So people a lot of citizens have a kind of unpleasant experience of clock time and hough it has been used against them. And that has always figured in the daylight story. Where theres a sense even though the congress did its level best to get out of this debate, it want nothing to do with daylight save time. The congress is played. You go on to the web there are thousands of websites about this being a federal conspiracy against the states. And the congress was begging, begging not to be in control of americas clocks. The last thing they wanted to do. Any other i am mr. Anecdote. I can besiege you all evening. The level of this confusion was really hit is peak in 60s for a couple of reasons. This phenomenon i read a little bit about which is that the independent cities began to adopt Daylight Saving time and the states dont so all these independent studies with different Daylight Saving policy which are inventing start and stop dates, so the continue next door might or might not bet on Daylight Saving. It is its unlinely its can use the same start date. By 1965, there are 130 city inside country with populations over 100,000, 130 of them. 671 are using Daylight Saving, 59 are not. Iowa, state which resisted Daylight Saving so it was not one of the most important Daylight Saving states, had 23 different start and stop time ford Daylight Saving, just iowa. One airline, American Airlines reports that every day, every day, it was getting 4,000 calls from customers trying to figure out what time it was in the city of their destination. It had started to cost the country millions of dollars just to rewrite timetable every few weeks. Theres a famous, very famous bus trip from steubenville, ohio, 35miles you wasnt through seven time change inside 35miles. That is 1965. This is when were at war, allegedly, the cold war is on, and we have these Precision Instruments on split sect timing and literally when the state department send six people out to took go meet beaut crisis thats happening near the russian border theyre all two hours laid. Had no idea what time zone alaska was on or dough late saving time. Martial tito shows up at the airport and nobody there is to great him. The country canned catch up because theres no one in charge. They put the congress put the interstate Commerce Commission in charge and by the way, the dicta, among the take they received were very specific, they were to arbitrate time in this country at the convenience of commerce. Time zones are north political bound boundaries. Theyre commercial browns. The railroad divvied up the world to make sense of its routes and then another fact maybe you all knew i never knew issue thought our time soaps were fixed. Our time was our time. The time zones in this country have become changed more than 50 times. Justifies keep move the boundaries. Thats how detroit got to be an east coast city. It moved it from the central to the eastern time zone. Wanted to about in time with new york. Shuck is to enhave ious, chicago think about it. Makes itself an eastern city and puts itself on Daylight Saving time. It clocks are running ahead of washington, dc at that opinion because washington, dc has no Daylight Saving time. And nobody is in control. The interstate Commerce Commission, which is supposedly controlling this, finally in 1960 literally writes a letter to congress and says we give up. We cant do this. We have no idea what were doing. Theres so many petitions and heres the campt its really facinating. Every states like georgia, which were deep live resistant Daylight Saving time, both on the sort of religious grounds and just that states rights issue became a big deal. Georgia moves itself its a divide state, hat central and eastern time zone. Georgia moves itself into the eastern time zone. Thats yeararound Daylight Saving time. But georgia call themselves an eastern time zone state now. So the states keep moving every single petition to move a time zone boundary line, always a position to move into an easterly time zone. So every state that was resisting Daylight Savings begging the icc to give them Daylight Saving under a different name. How stable is the situation . Its fantastically unstable. I sow wish i could say it were stable. Tremendously so. We have indiana as a perfect example. Indiana has two time zones, a divide state. Notably that was not always so. Indiana got its boundary mixed up when detroit jump evidence ship and went to the eastern time zone, pulling half of michigan with it. So that boundary started to move. Indiana has two im seenes, central and eastern. I almost cant bleach believe i understand this. Heres. The deal. Some counties in central time zone spring disburden some dont. Some countiness the eastern time zone bring spurred some dont so indiana has four time zones. That could petition themselves into a single time zone. Theres every reason to believe that the time zones in the next ten or 15 years i would say are going to be collapsed from four to three. Its causing too much confusion in the country so i think that will change. There is no question but that the amount of Daylight Saving we have is going to change. Many of you probably know dish dont know who as enough everyone is obsessed with this topic as i am its preposterous and i apologize for indicting you the way did. I happen to be obsessed with Daylight Saving and know the congress is considering a welcome twomonth extension on the basis of energy saving. There have been studies and debates before congress for 100 years, we will hear repeatedly that it saves 10,000barrels of oil a day. Theft what youll be told. Here all i know. That comes from statistic that was done of the fantastically failed experiment by Richard Nixon by the adapt of transportation. What the congressmen are proposing is that the study reads it might saving Something Like 10,000 barrels of oil. It likely will also increase the use of heating oil and gasoline, the one thing we know Daylight Saving does is push people outdoors men and you push americans outdoors they get into their cars. The Petroleum Industry has known then and have the been tremendous supporter offed Daylight Saving. In 1986 he wad six months of Daylight Saving. A push on to expand it. We eventually expanded it to the system we have now which is seven months. One month extra of Daylight Saving. To the barbecue industry, 150 million a year. To the golf industry, 200 to 400 million daz year. That is why well have more Daylight Saving. The only losers that year, there was a push on to extend Daylight Saving not just back as they did, into the beginning of april, but hey wanted to go to the first sunday in november and this was hotly debated in the house, and its hard to penetrate the congressional hearings. One thing i have to say theyve the greatest comic document of the last 1 years. Its fast, what gets said before the congress and i dont mean that really truly dont mean if disrespectfully people come into public for you. And say absolutely anything hoping for the best. So they came with a Daylight Saving proposal. A tremendously orchestrated lobbiy effort and a desperate push on to get an extra week at the end of this. Finally a couple really calm of southern senators who got so fed up that they said, you cant have that week. You can have the other month but not that wake and thats why it went down that way. Heres who wanted it. The candy manufacturers. That week includes trick or treat. And this only comes out because what happens is when the Senate Leaves to consider this week, they come back the next day and all these little pumpkins filled with candy on their chairs im not making this stuff up. Go back to australia. Absolutely. We were there for 12 weeks and what fascinate me was whence you go from the new south wallet to southwest central theres a half hour difference. Now, if you want to find out where youre going and when youre going to get there, try a half hour, and if youre on the murray river where there you are, the boundary between the two states and you have half hour difference. So its that sort of solution is a desperate solution but its from people cant agree which time zone to be in and thats considered a compromise. India has half hour im zones has does newfoundland before us. Its a half hour ahead of us. Theyre fame news canada because they have used some new years 30 minutes of Daylight Saving, some years 90, some years 120. They just make it up. And so they sometimes have sunsets on st. Johns by a as late as 10 3 at night. Pay laurently because they like it. But these half hour differences is a solution that came up several timed. Prez one year put itself on half hour day it saving because professionals who lived in paris loved it. The doctors in he lawyers. So the doctors ginned up a study and claimed Daylight Saving really true calmed the nervous disorders and they went through and figured out how many fewer suicides happened during Daylight Saving time. Most inside inside actually occur at night. So, waiting an hour most people who are going to kill themselves had another hour and would hold off for the hour of dark news. Every deaf bait has quality of almost having logic until you look at it again. Almost sensible. Like the savings on oil. You think it should save a little bit. And then as congress had begged people to explain so its dark until 9 00, dont you turn on you lights where you wouldnt have before . And the person just looks stunned at the other side of the microphone. No, no its a big coal saving. And the congressman says when with did it in 74, the schools said we didnt have sun to heat the building to had to add more heat to get them warm . No, no its a big electricity saver. And you can see that every time you press that, part of the problem is, repeatedly its sort of touching because i love that other people are as confused also i was. I thought i was alone their stupidest person in america who couldnt get the hour thing straight. Youve still read constantly this week ive been reading all over america, the idea of if we have more daylight we use less electricity. Well, that would be love live if we could get more daylight. But we cant invent more daylight. So we have a fixed number of hours sun every day but people really get caught up with the notion well give offers an extra hour. Its on the house. And spend it as you please. Its compel because its a romantic idea we can lengthen our day. But its a problem. I was saying earlier every culture has dealt with. I romans were deeply attached to the idea of even dave and night. They love this idea of perfect symmetry. So they changed the length of the hour. So as summer came, the roman hour was 75 minutes long. The japanese, when they made the first clocks, made these incredible tumblr clocks and water clocks. They made tumbler concludes, they adjusted them every day so that sunrise would always occur at 6 00 a. M. Sensible. Its theyre all forms of Daylight Saving. Promoting people to get out of bed to anyone issue the day in an orderly way according to a clock that everyone could rely on. But these ideas, i should not bring any of this up wont saying the name Benjamin Franklin who as with almost everything in history, Benjamin Franklin almost invented Daylight Saving time and really did. He wasnt paris in 1784 and was out very late at night and he was walking home so late that the sun began to rise. And he made the on sir verification that all of paris has their windows closed and theyre shaded pulled. So he wrote a letter to the journal of paris, saying this is a fantastic waist and he actually suggested that officials of the city of prez should fire off cannons to wake up all their lazy citizens. Didnt actually go over so well so he didnt get it but everyone thinks of franklins because he is so funny and such a charming writer, his joke, it turns out in his auto biography in london, franklin notices the exact same thing and says its a fantastic waste of candle woks, were using 10 more than we need. To so the whole controversy of the fuel debate, if we cant make him the inventer of it we can make him the inventer of the controversy over the fuel because hi proposed it as fuel safe. Just the world one on clock time yet there was no way to organize Daylight Savings. It takes a clock, since its so unnatural a gesture. Arent the time zones supposed to be like 24 parts of the sir circumference of the earth and noon is the sun at its highest and if that was exact, would we still have this controversy . Its like where is there is would way it becomes a steady state . Its so great youre asking this question. Theres a tremendous figure in history, like most canadians he is unknown to americans. His name is sanford them and he was just a great a genuine engineer, and a statesman and just a incredibly elegant writer. He invited time zones. Divided the world into 24 segmented. And because the world is almost spherical and because we have an almost 24 hour day, almost works. He did a very brilliant thing which is that he didnt fix the boundaries east and west of each time zone. So if you imagine a map and say that georgia is one time zone boundary and kansas is the other. I got it wrong but lets say thats the central time zone. Those can move. What is fixed is the central line, the meridian and that way if people move in and out it doesnt affect the time sewn time. Which is an incredibly elegant solution. The problem is, when they fix those time zones, they put the meridians through what were then Population Centers so philadelphia is almost the center of the eastern time zone. Well, times change and people move. Indianapolis has meridian exactly. Thats exactly right. So, as populations move, thats where true noon happens at the meridian. If you move further west or eat youre over sawn time. Sun time is now as much as an hour so you have sun rising happened at 11 00 in the morning. And then you add Daylight Saving to that and you have doubletrouble. So there is no way to address that except to remake the time zones entirely. But i actually think the big mistake with Sanford Wilson, 1883, the railroads in north america simply put time zones into effect. No assistance from the federal government. Its completely a commercial maneuver. Until 1919 theres no time zone legislation in this country. The railroads were that powerful. At the same moment Sanford Wilson provided us with what would have been a fantastically elegant idea. He invented something which he called i like the name cosmopolitan time. It was simple. It was the idea of using the 24 hour clock so we wouldnt use a 12 can hour crock which causes no end of confusion around the world, and keeping everybody let me do it simply. Recognizing there is only one day on the face of the earth. Presently heres what happens. If its merchandise in japan, its monday in japan eight not monday for the next 24 hours in japan and San Francisco. We have 55 hours of three different days on the globe according to our clocks. Fleming says this it the craziest notion. When its 10 00 in some morning beijing, 10 00 in beijing, its 10 00 in london, its 10 00 in its 10 00 everyone because its 10 00 on the earth. Then we would have a different relationship two watt 10 00 means am different amount of light. I am not exaggerating. People flipped out. As if he said everyone has to live standing on their hands. People said this is insane. Cant make people do that. Theft why we dont have 24 hour clock and 1883 the colored wouldnt kole late it for citizens. Every government in the world operates on that clock. Every military in the world operates on the clock. Almost every business now who has an internet presence operates on the clock. It the obvious sensible solution. Only citizens who are not trusted with that clock. They tell us we cant handle it. Maybe theyre right. You mean the 24 hour clock. The rest of the world uses it except nor this country. They do but the problem if was not using is we want have true mayoral time where we all say its 10 00 at the same moment. Its like the metric system. Its quite like that. Most people we learn it for ten minutes in school and once we get over ore fewer of centimeters it makes sense. But we have a kind of we hold to our 12 inches. Thats a good idea. Im not touching the metric system. Im hoping to retreat into the land of real fiction, not this fiction. And escape from American History for a while. A really unlikely book for me to write. Should say that. Just never occurred to me i would write a book but a Daylight Saving time. A big seller. If you should say that everywhere you go. These predictions actually writers dont get in the way of those. Im not going to deny that. Youre very kind. I want to thank you so much for coming and keep writing these books. I know it wasnt something you thought you would write but its so facinating. I think we could go on all night. So i want to thank you very much. And everyone else for coming. [applause] we happen coaches copies of k here. Thank you all for coming. For a firsthand account of how innovation is taking place e in cities across the country. Booktv in prime time starts tonight at 6 30 p. M. Eastern here on cspan2. Check your Program Guide for more information. Jaquira diaz with us today court i of david and noel ray and [inaudible] ms. Diaz was born in puerto rico. Her work has been published in rolling stone, the guardian, long reads and, the, the New York Times style magazine, and included in the best american essays 2016. She is the recipient