Daylight Saving Time 1945 To 1966
From 1945 to 1966 U.S. federal law did not address DST. States and cities were free to observe DST or not, and most places that did observe DST did so from the last Sunday in April to the last Sunday in September. In the mid-1950s many areas in the northeastern United States began extending DST to the last Sunday in October. The lack of standardization led to a patchwork where some areas observed DST while adjacent areas did not, and it was not unheard of to have to reset a clock several times during a short trip (e.g., bus drivers operating on West Virginia Route 2 between Moundsville, West Virginia, and Steubenville, Ohio had to reset their watches seven times over 35 miles).
In summer 1960 April-October Daylight Time was nearly universal in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and states east and north of there. In Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia and states north and east of there, some areas had it and some didn't. Except for California and Nevada, which had April-Sept Daylight Time, 99% of the rest of the country used Standard Time year-round. (The Official Guide says "State law prohibits the observance of "Daylight Saving" time in Kentucky but Anchorage, Louisville and Shelbyville will advance their clocks one hour from Central Standard time for the period April 24 to October 29, inclusive.")
In the middle 1960s the airline and other transportation industries lobbied for uniformity of Daylight dates in the United States.
Read more about this topic: History Of Time In The United States
Famous quotes containing the words daylight, saving and/or time:
“This, our respectable daily life, on which the man of common sense, the Englishman of the world, stands so squarely, and on which our institutions are founded, is in fact the veriest illusion, and will vanish like the baseless fabric of a vision; but that faint glimmer of reality which sometimes illuminates the darkness of daylight for all men, reveals something more solid and enduring than adamant, which is in fact the cornerstone of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Oh that my Pow’r to Saving were confin’d:
Why am I forc’d, like Heav’n, against my mind,
To make Examples of another Kind?
Must I at length the Sword of Justice draw?
Oh curst Effects of necessary Law!
How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan,
Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“Rosalind. I pray you, what is’t a’ clock?
Orlando. You should ask me what time o’ day; there’s no
clock in the forest.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)