October 22, 2002
It’s about time: The concept of time has a
confusing history
This weekend, Oct. 27, is the second time of year when
internal body clocks are thrown out of rhythm.
Clocks ‘‘fall back’’ on Sunday at 2 a.m. - as
an extra hour of sleep is gained. Sunday is the end of
daylight-saving time. Clocks will be turned back one hour
to extend daylight hours.
Most people adjust after a couple days and find the
hardest part of coping with daylight-saving is manually
resetting all their clocks. It renews the battle with the
VCR clock that still flashes ‘‘12:00.’’
And it renews the battle with trying to figure out
daylight-saving time, which remains a perplexing concept.
Arizona and parts of Indiana do not change their clocks
and it is not unusual in parts of Indiana to have
husbands, wives and kids going to work and school in
different time zones during daylight-saving time.
Daylight-saving time was conceived in a humorous essay
by Benjamin Franklin in 1784 and first advocated seriously
by London builder, William Willet in a pamphlet
‘‘Waste of Daylight’’ in 1907.
There is no scientific need for it. As explained by
Geoff Chester, Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Naval
Observatory in Washington D.C., ‘‘It started as an
energy conservation program during World War I. It was
discovered that people were more active in the evening and
by moving the clocks ahead, people had more time to
accomplish all their tasks before the sun set.’’ He
added daylight-saving time was in effect during World War
II.
‘‘A variety of local laws were in effect for
daylight-saving time but they weren’t really enforced
until the passing of the Uniform Time Act of 1966,’’
Chester says.
The act, signed into law by president Lyndon Johnson on
April 12, 1966, called for daylight-saving time to begin
on the last Sunday in April and end the last Sunday of
October. Congress amended the law in 1986 to have
daylight-saving time begin the first week of April.
But no matter how confusing daylight-saving time is, it
doesn’t come close to the bewilderment and complete and
utter confusion the people of the United Kingdom and the
American Colonies faced in 1751 and 1752. In those years
they endured five time changes that resulted in 1751
having only 282 days, and a whole new day being
established to celebrate New Year’s Day.
The changes came about as a result of the British
Calendar Act of 1752. This act dictated that the British
Empire fall in line with the ‘‘Gregorian
Correction’’ made to the calendar in 1582. The year
2002 is the 250th anniversary of the act.
A summary of the 1752 Act includes the following:
- Dec. 31, 1750, was followed by Jan. 1, 1750 (yes,
the same year)
- March 24, 1750, was followed by March 25, 1751 (a
year later)
- Sept. 2, 1752, was followed by Sept. 14, 1752,
- And finally getting back to normal, Dec. 31, 1752
was followed by Jan. 1, 1753.
September 1752 only had 19 days. It is not known how
the people who had birthdays felt, or if they even had
birthdays that year, but bill collectors became confused
and reports spread that employees are losing 11 days’
pay, and everybody is losing 11 days of his life.
Londoners cried, ‘‘Give us our 11 days back!’’ and
people rioted in the streets to protest the calendar
change.
The act also called for celebrating New Year’s Day on
Jan. 1 instead of March 24. Until 1933, presidential
inaugurations were held in March - a tradition carried
over from the time we celebrated the New Year in March.
Confusion about time can be traced back further.
Astronomers and mathematicians discovered during the
middle ages that the calendar year was not completely
accurate with the solar year. Church officials detected
errors in the Julian calendar because church holidays did
not occur in their proper seasons.
During Pope Gregory XIII’s reign, 1572-1585, the
mathematicians and astronomers created a reformed calendar
known as the Gregorian, or New Style (NS). The adjustments
made in 1582 in the NS calendar eliminated 10 days in
October. October 4 was followed by October 15. Roman
Catholic countries adopted the new calendar quickly.
Protestant countries didn’t follow suit until the 18th
century.
The British Empire was aware of the Gregorian calendar
and the changes in their own calendars they would
eventually have to make. In fact, Scotland adopted the NS
calendar earlier than 1752 and began to celebrate the New
Year on January 1 in 1600.
Some educated New England clerks who knew of the NS
calendar changes started ‘‘double-dating’’
documents so as to distinguish between the calendars.
Those who do genealogical research no doubt have come
across this strange custom of dating documents with two
dates. It is not uncommon to see two dates separated by a
slash (/) to distinguish between the Old and New Style
calendars.
You will often see documents dated such as 1653/1654 in
court and town records, and in wills. They even show up on
many 17th century gravestones, though curiously, they are
not as common in church records. British America used
‘double dating’ throughout the 1600s on up until the
changes in 1752.
Even after 1752, keeping track of time confused people.
Only after the explosive spread of railroads and the
telegraph in 1883, did towns across the country use
standardized time and time zones.
As with all changes there are always those who hold
out. It is interesting to note that Alaska did not switch
from the Julian calendar to the new Gregorian calendar
until 1867. Up to that time, it was a part of Russia,
which didn’t change to the NS calendar until 1918.
Of course, among the protesters and confused nay sayers
in 1752, one always can find the eternal optimist and
purveyor of rainbows. Benjamin Franklin wrote, ‘‘It is
pleasant for an old man to be able to go to bed on
September 2, and not have to get up until September 14."
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