Why Do We Change the Clocks?The Strange History of Daylight Saving

0:00The belief and the record

Ask why we change the clocks, and many people will tell you: the farmers. It is a tidy story. The record says it is close to backwards. So let's open the case file, and put the story next to the documents. Farmers were among the loudest opponents of daylight saving time. Cows do not read clocks. In 1918, the first federal time law moved the nation's clocks forward. A year later, Congress repealed it, over President Wilson's veto. So if the farmers did not want it, who did? And why are we still arguing about it?

0:42Exhibit 1: the usual suspect, Paris, 1784

Start with the story you may have heard: Benjamin Franklin invented daylight saving time. Here is the evidence. In 1784, Franklin, then living in Paris, wrote a joking letter to a newspaper. His plan: tax window shutters, ration candles, and ring church bells, or fire cannon, at sunrise. He wanted Parisians out of bed earlier. He never suggested moving the clocks. For another century, America had no single clock to move. Towns kept their own local time. Then, on Sunday, November 18, 1883, the railroads put the country on standard time. Congress did not write time zones into law until 1918. Remember that: a time zone is an agreement. If Franklin never proposed it, who first asked to move the clock itself?

1:40Exhibit 2: the proposers, 1895 to 1916

The first serious proposal came from New Zealand, in 1895. George Vernon Hudson sorted mail by day and collected insects after work. He wanted more evening light, so he proposed moving the clocks two hours every summer. The idea went nowhere.

In London, a builder named William Willett paid to print a pamphlet in 1907. He called it The Waste of Daylight. Bills went to Parliament, and failed. Farming interests were among the objectors. Willett died in 1915. A year later, war did what persuasion could not. On April 30, 1916, Germany moved its clocks forward to save coal. Britain followed three weeks later. When America joined in, who was pushing?

2:37Exhibit 3: who wanted it, 1918 to 1919

The American campaign was run from New York, by businessmen like Marcus Marks, a clothing merchant. Look at who printed the posters. These came from a chain of cigar stores. The pitch was patriotic: set the clock ahead, save coal, win the war. The push came from the cities, from merchants and business groups who wanted shoppers out in the evening light.

On March 19, 1918, President Wilson signed the first federal time law. It drew the time zones, and on March 31, the nation's clocks went forward.

On the farm, the clock was a problem. Cows kept to the sun, and dew still had to dry. But the markets ran on the clock, so many farmers faced an extra hour of work in the morning dark. In October 1918, the clocks went back for the winter. In 1919, Congress voted to repeal it. President Wilson vetoed the repeal twice. The second time, Congress overrode him: 223 to 101 in the House, 57 to 19 in the Senate. Farmers were not the only ones who wanted it gone. But they were among the loudest. With no national law, who decided what time it was?

4:11Exhibit 4: every town for itself, 1919 to 1966

After 1919, every town chose for itself. Some cities kept summer time. The countryside around them often did not. In World War Two, the clocks went forward again, this time all year. Americans called it War Time, from February 1942 to September 1945.

By the 1960s, the map was a mess. Neighboring towns could keep different times. In April 1966, President Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act: one schedule for the whole country. And one escape hatch: a state could stay on standard time all year. Hawaii took it in 1967, and Arizona in 1968.

What happened when the whole country tried to stop switching?

5:09Case two: 1974, and who wanted more

Then came the oil crisis. On December 15, 1973, President Nixon signed a law putting the country on daylight saving time all year. On January 6, 1974, in the middle of winter, the clocks sprang forward. Before the switch, 79 percent of Americans approved. By February, after a few weeks of dark winter mornings, approval had fallen to 42.

A federal review later found more school-age children killed on winter-morning roads than a year before, but it could not prove the clock was to blame. And the energy savings were too small to measure reliably. It did not last the year. On October 5, 1974, President Ford signed a law putting the clocks back.

Now, the overlooked detail. In 1986, Congress started daylight saving time three weeks earlier. The coalition that pushed for it was funded mainly by two companies: 7-Eleven, and the maker of Kingsford charcoal. Since 2007, the clocks have stayed forward from March to November, almost eight months a year. Golf is still in this fight. In 2025, golf course owners told the Senate that permanent daylight time would add about a billion dollars a year, by their own estimate. Strange to say, the paper trail leads away from the farm, and toward stores, grills and golf courses. And what happened in the countries that tried to stop?

6:53Exhibit 5: the other countries

Britain tried permanent summer time once. From 1968 to 1971, its clocks stayed an hour ahead all year. Parliament voted to end it, after objections from Scotland, where winter sunrise came very late. Portugal moved its clocks an hour ahead in 1992, and back again in 1996, after parents complained that children walked to school in the dark. Russia stopped falling back in 2011, then reversed in 2014, citing dark winter mornings and health. Morocco kept summer time from 2018. In September 2026, it went back to Greenwich Mean Time for good. Europe came close. In 2019, the European Parliament voted 410 to 192 to end the switch. Member governments never agreed, and the plan is listed as blocked. Mexico did stop, in 2022. It kept standard time, except in towns along the US border. Next door, Canada is moving now. British Columbia sprang forward for the last time in March 2026, and Alberta and Manitoba will not fall back this November. On October 13, 2026, Ontario announced that its northwest corner plans to follow Manitoba. Britain, Portugal and Russia all pointed to the same thing: dark winter mornings. Why do the mornings keep winning? Look at a map.

8:30The reframe: who gets the light

Here is the reframe. The fight was never really farmers against clocks. It is mornings against evenings: who gets the light. Moving the clock does not make more daylight. It only moves it. A time zone is hundreds of miles wide, and the sun takes an hour to cross it. On the shortest day, the sun sets at 4:15 in Boston. In Detroit, on the same clock, it sets at 5:03. Under the House bill, daylight time all year, Detroit would see sunrise after 9 a.m. on 14 mornings a year. Indianapolis would wait until after 8:30 on 96 mornings. Today: none.

Under permanent standard time, the cost moves to summer. In June, Boston's sun would rise at 4:07 in the morning, and set at 7:25. And here is the rule that traps everyone: a state may choose standard time all year, but not daylight time. Only Congress can allow that. Arizona took that option in 1968, so Phoenix would not notice a thing. And the evidence? Less clear than either side would like. Sleep-medicine groups favor permanent standard time, arguing that morning light sets the body clock. After we spring forward, two large US studies found about 6 percent more fatal crashes that week, and another found robberies fell about 7 percent. The largest review so far, 157 studies, found a mixed picture. Where do things stand this fall?

10:15Where it stands, as of October 13, 2026

Here is what was said, and what changed in law, as of October 13, 2026. On July 14, the House voted 308 to 117 to keep daylight saving time all year. Most Republicans and a narrower majority of Democrats voted yes. Members of both parties voted no. The bill would move every time zone one hour ahead, for good. In the Senate, there has been no vote.

President Trump's position has moved. In December 2024, he said Republicans would try to eliminate daylight saving time. In March 2025, he called it a 50-50 issue. Since April 2025, he has urged Congress to make it permanent, most recently in early October. But a president cannot change the clocks alone. It takes Congress. The Senate is away until after the November elections. If it does not act by January 3, 2027, the bill dies. For now, nothing has changed in the law.

11:24Back to the case file

So, back to the case file. The farmers did not give us daylight saving time. They fought it. But the record cannot tell you which clock is right. That depends on where you live, and when you want your light. At 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 1, most of America falls back an hour. That evening in Boston, the sun will set at 4:37. The day before, it set at 5:39. Look at your own clock when the sun goes down that day, and ask which hour you would keep. In a wood south of London, William Willett's memorial is a sundial. According to the international time-zone database, it runs on summer time, all year. Under the dial, the stone carries a motto in Latin: Horas non numero nisi aestivas. I count only the summer hours.