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 th