The nutcase who came up with that idea was Benjamin Franklin in 1784. However, he was not being serious. He presented his tongue-in-cheek ideas in a letter to the editor of Journal of Paris, citing benefits like saving millions of pounds of candle wax and proposing guards on candle shops so that people did not buy more than they should, plus police to keep people off the roads at night.
He said that people would come to learn that the day—and their activities–begins when the sun comes up. To help the lazy ones fall into line, at sunrise cannons and church bells should resound.
If he was just joshing with us, how did Daylight Saving Time come to be taken seriously? It seems that the inventors of a new kind of oil lamp kept Franklin’s idea alive through correspondence with him. In 1907 a builder, William Willett, began promoting it (with time and a good amount of money). He was serious, noting that this would make us healthier because we would have more daylight to exercise and recreate ourselves, which also meant making better use of parks and public lands. It would be especially helpful for people who sleep by open windows, as the sun would not interfere with their rest.
Legislation was introduced in Parliament but ridiculed and defeated, then, despite opposition from farmers, passed in 1916, right after France did. It led to much confusion, especially in Edinburgh at 1 PM, with the castle’s gun firing using Summer Time and the bell on Calton Hill using Greenwich Time.
The idea was taken up in the U.S. in 1916, in a post WWI attempt to save fuel that produced electricity. It was made law in 1918, repealed the next year, became a local option, then was re-instituted by Roosevelt during WWII, went back to being optional in 1945-1966, came back with Nixon’s Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (taking effect in 2007) made the duration longer, to what we have today.
End of story? Maybe not. In that 2005 act Congress included their right to change back to the 1986 law (starting the time change in April) if what they had just enacted proves unpopular.
In other words, if you dislike Daylight Saving Time, wait awhile. It’s as stable as the clouds that drift across the moon.