What is the origin of daylight saving time? Didn’t California vote to stop the change?
When asked about the origin of daylight saving time, you may imagine 19th-century farmers dressed in linen getting an extra hour of daylight to tend to their crops and animals.
Is there any truth to the popular claim?
The Sacramento Bee consulted Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and National Geographic to understand the origin of daylight saving time and how the biannual time change came to be. This year, clocks will spring forward one hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 10.
Read on — then, take our 10-question quiz to test your knowledge.
Was daylight saving time invented for farmers?
Daylight savings time was never created for farmers but instead to save money and energy.
The applicable concept is officially credited to New Zealand entomologist George Hudson in 1895. However, famous inventor Benjamin Franklin toyed with the idea nearly 100 years earlier.
In 1784, Franklin pondered the shift to rising earlier in a satirical letter to the editor of the Journal of Paris, adding that doing so would decrease the use of candles and save money.
“Yet it so happens, that when I speak of this discovery to others, I can easily perceive by their countenances, though they forbear expressing it in words, that they do not quite believe me,” Franklin wrote.
In the letter, Franklin said he didn’t want money or notoriety in exchange for his discovery — only credit.
The modern-day concept resurfaced in 1895 when Hudson proposed shifting the clocks to create more daylight for studying bugs, according to National Geographic.
Clocks were briefly pushed forward as a global attempt to save energy during World War I, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health stated. Germany implemented DST in 1916 and the U.S. followed suit two years later, according to The University of Colorado Boulder. It was repealed the next year.
President Franklin Roosevelt resurfaced it during World War II before the Uniform Time Act of 1966 established the biannual time change similar to what we use today.
The start and end of daylight saving time went through several shifts until the early 2000s, according to timeanddate.com. Starting in 2007, daylight saving time began on the second Sunday in March and ended on the first Sunday in November.
Didn’t California vote to get rid of daylight saving time?
In 2018, more than 7.1 million California residents — nearly 60% of the total vote — marked yes to Proposition 7 to stop the time change.
One year later, Assemblyman Democrat Kansen Chu introduced an assembly bill but it eventually died in committee, according to a previous Sacramento Bee story.
After Chu left office, Irvine Republican Assemblyman Steven Choi introduced Assembly Bill 2868 in 2021. The bill, which proposed year-round daylight saving time under Proposition 7, died the following year.
Permanent daylight saving time would require permission from the federal government.
What happened to the Sunshine Protection Act?
In 2018, Sen. Marco Rubio introduced the Sunshine Protection Act.
If passed, daylight saving time would be permanent in the U.S., meaning people would not be forced to change their clocks back one hour in November. According to the act, time zones nor the amount of daylight hours would be altered.
Rubio reintroduced the bill last year, with Rep. Vern Buchanan introducing it in the House.
As of March 2023, neither proposal in the Senate nor the House has progressed through the introduction phase. Both bills have been referred to separate committees.
Two states, Hawaii and most of Arizona, do not observe daylight saving time and instead operate on permanent standard time.
Test your knowledge
Whether you’re for the biannual time change, against it or somewhere in between — there may be some facts you do not know.
How much do you know about daylight saving time? Take our 10-question quiz and find out.
Clarification: A yes vote on Proposition 7 would allow for legislation to either keep permanent standard or daylight time, eliminating the time change, as federal law allows.
