"Get Your Hoe Ready!" Government poster from 1918 showing Uncle Sam turning clock to daylight saving time. (Photo by VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images)

On this day in 1918, daylight savings time went into effect for the first time. 

Daylight Saving Time (DST) is a government policy regulating the timing of daylight during the summer months. While DST's existence is taken for granted in modern American life, the adoption and expansion of the policy was heavily debated, with strong opposition that persists to the present day—a full century after its inception as a World War I energy‐efficiency program. After reviewing the history of DST, we analyze the political economy of congressional vote choice on DST policy.  

Clocks will move ahead an hour on the second Sunday in March and back on the first Sunday in November, adding three weeks in the spring and a week in the fall to daylight time. By increasing daylight at the end of the day, U.S. citizens hope to conserve energy and reduce the need for artificial light.  

Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia reset their clocks move forward from standard time, starting daylight saving time and giving us more late-evening sunlight. From a health standpoint, most sleep and circadian experts say we should stay in in standard time instead, as that early-morning sunlight is key to maintaining our circadian rhythms, sleep-wake cycles and overall health.

This illustration photo shows a clock in the background of a smartphone showing the time after daylight saving time was implemented in Los Angeles, California, on March 15, 2022. The US Senate advanced a bill on March 15 that would bring an end to the twice-yearly changing of clocks, in favor of a
This illustration photo shows a clock in the background of a smartphone showing the time after daylight saving time was implemented in Los Angeles, California, on March 15, 2022. The US Senate advanced a bill on March 15 that would bring an end to the twice-yearly changing of clocks, in favor of a "new, permanent standard time" that would mean brighter winter evenings. (Photo by Chris DELMAS / AFP) (Photo by CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images)

 

This article looks at the most significant public debate over time in Montreal's history: the beginnings of daylight saving time (1907-1928) in Montreal, Canada. Seeing daylight saving time as an example of the disembedding of time from place, the article demonstrates the importance of local social dynamics in the creation of meanings of modernity. Daylight saving time began as an idea to save money and improve people's lives, though it was ridiculed until the First World War, when it was put in place in Montreal and much of North America and Europe. Yet after the war, it was rejected as a national measure, and subsequently much of North America and eventually even the Island of Montreal turned into a patchwork of time zones.