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HISTORY LIVES

Daylight Saving Time

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It was called the Standard Time Act of 1918; the part providing for DST was called the Daylight Saving Time Act. After World War I ended, Daylight Saving Time was repealed with a Congressional override of President Wilson’s veto, opponents claiming that clock shifts complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, electrical devices, farming, and sleep patterns.
As a result, DST became a local option. A few states such as Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and major cities such as New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, enacted it.
Because of the above situation, Doylestown Borough Council at the meeting of April 19, 1926, adopted the following resolution: “In view of the annoyance and confusion which will be caused if this community fails to conform to the new time which will be adopted April 25th, by the city of Philadelphia, the railway and trolleys and many communities, borough council recommends that all business places and residences conform to the new schedule, advancing the time one hour effective April 25th, 1926.”

Forty years later, the Uniform Time Act of 1966 established a system of uniform (within each time zone) Daylight Saving Time throughout the U.S., exempting only those states in which the legislatures voted to keep the entire state on standard time. Under that law DST began at 2 a.m. local time on the last Sunday in April and ended at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in October. In 2007 the period of DST was extended by four weeks, establishing the current eight months of daylight saving time and four months of standard time for most of the U.S.
doylestownhistorical.org


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