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Why Does Daylight Saving Time Exist, Anyway?

This forced disruption in the flow of time has its arguably anachronistic roots in World War I

Daylight Saving Time is at best annoying and anachronistic. At worst, research suggests it’s ineffective, unhealthy and even dangerous. So why are most Americans forced to spring forward and fall back every year?

The time warp traces back to WW1, when clocks were tweaked (by hand, it should be noted) at the request of the Federal government as a way to conserve fuel and lengthen the workday for the sake of the war effort. It was pitched as more than that, however:

Uncle Sam, in this 1918 poster, put a positive farming spin on a new law aimed at adding an hour of daylight to American’s evening awake time in support of the war effort. Credit: Library of Congress

The 1918 Standard Time Act that ushered in Daylight Saving Time (DST) also established Standard Time. When the law was repealed after the war, Standard Time remained as a seemingly eternal vestige.

But even time is not eternal when governments get involved.

The hands of time were tinkered with again during WWII, with DST making a comeback. Then after that war, the federal government ended DST as a requirement, but this time states were allowed to stick with it if they chose. Then in…