American History Hotline

Episode: Why Won’t Daylight Saving Time Die?

Host: Bob Crawford
Guest: Chad Orzell, author of A Brief History of Timekeeping, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Union College
Date: October 29, 2025

Overview

In this episode, Bob Crawford and guest Chad Orzell address listener Donna’s persistent question: “Why do we still have Daylight Saving Time (DST), and why can’t we just get rid of it?” Covering the origins and evolution of timekeeping, standard time, and time zones, they dig into the historical, scientific, and practical reasons behind changing the clocks—and why, despite popular frustration, the biannual ritual endures.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Balancing Priorities: Why DST Exists

• DST is about trade-offs. It solves two problems: early winter sunrises and late summer sunsets.
  • Quote: “There are two things that Daylight Saving Time accomplishes. One is it ensures that the sun rises relatively early in the winter ... and it also ensures that the sun is up late in the summer ... It's kind of the best way to balance those two things that we like having.”
    (Chad Orzell, 04:17)

2. Before Standard Time: Sundials and Local Noon

• Before trains and telegraphs, people set noon when the sun was highest locally.
• Each town’s time was slightly different; this “local solar time” worked until travel and communication sped up.
  • Quote: “The oldest forms of timekeeping all rely on the position of the sun in the sky … That varies from place to place as you move around the Earth.”
    (Chad Orzell, 05:24)

3. Railroads, Telegraphs, & the Invention of Time Zones

• With the advent of fast trains and telegraphs, confusion over local times became unworkable—especially for scheduling.
• Railroads began to coordinate times, stringing telegraph cables along tracks to sync clocks.
• The push for standardization grew out of both necessity (transport, messaging) and disasters (like tracking an aurora, 07:57).
• Cleveland Abbe, a pioneering weather forecaster, and others lobbied for standardized zones.
• The system we use today came from railroad companies, not the government.
  • Quote: “They drew up a set of time zones ... and they just said, you know, all of the railroad companies agreed to adopt this system and then they lobbied local municipalities to sign on to their time scheme. And that ended up becoming the backbone of standardized time zones in the U.S.”
    (Chad Orzell, 10:07–11:55)

4. Synchronizing Across the World: The Greenwich Decision

• The Greenwich Observatory in England was chosen as the "zero" for time.
• This decision was pragmatic: most world maps already used British standards.
  • Quote: “The British counter argument was that like 75% of world shipping used maps that were made in the UK ... and that ended up carrying the day...”
    (Chad Orzell, 28:50–29:50)

5. The Origin and Implementation of DST

• DST started in Europe during World War I to conserve coal.
• The US and other combatants adopted it, later dropping and re-adopting in WWII and then formalizing in the 1960s through the Uniform Time Act.
  • Quote: “So Daylight Saving Time comes about—starts in Europe around World War I ... it's a way to avoid having to burn energy to generate light ... That starts during World War I, gets pretty universally adopted by the combatants, including the US when we get into it ... In the mid-60s, they pass a uniform time act...”
    (Chad Orzell, 13:55–15:25)

6. Exceptions & Quirks: Arizona, Hawaii, Indiana, and More

• Some places—Arizona and Hawaii—don’t observe DST, for reasons including climate (hotter evenings in Arizona) and limited variation in daylight hours (Hawaii).
• The Navajo Nation observes DST; parts of Indiana have sometimes chosen to align with nearby states or cities for practical (workplace) reasons.
  • Quote: “Arizona is one of the last holdouts ... Their argument is actually energy based ... we actually want it to get dark earlier in Arizona so that the temperature goes down and things are more pleasant.”
    (Chad Orzell, 19:35–20:51)

7. Failed Experiments: Year-Round DST

• In the 1970s, the US tried staying on DST all year during the energy crisis. It failed after one year; dark winter mornings were unpopular.
  • Quote: “By October ... they had repealed the law and we moved the clocks back again. And the reason is ... in a lot of east coast cities in December it's like 9 in the morning... People hate that even more than they hate resetting their clocks.”
    (Chad Orzell, 22:51–24:17)

8. It’s a Hassle—But We Like the Results

• Most complaints are about the biannual clock change. The only truly unpopular one is "springing forward," losing an hour of sleep.
• Chad’s tongue-in-cheek solution: move the clocks forward five minutes each weekend for 12 weeks after the winter solstice, instead of one big jump.
  • Quote: “Five minutes a weekend, nobody would notice that. And ... the clock in my car is off by five minutes already. So it'd be fine.”
    (Chad Orzell, 24:49–25:41)

9. Why Not Abolish DST?

• Efforts to “permanently” fix DST resurface often (with bipartisan support), but the current arrangement is a compromise that preserves both late summer evenings and brighter winter mornings.
• The whole time system is, fundamentally, arbitrary and designed for convenience—and for business.
  • Quote: “Our system of time zones relies on us pretending that it is the precise same time of day in eastern Maine and western Indiana. And that's ... makes no actual geographical or astronomical sense, but we do it because it's convenient.”
    (Chad Orzell, 26:36)

10. Capitalism and Time: Business Was the Driver

• Standard time and time zones were created by (and for) business: the railroads, communication, and coordination.
• Later, international standardization followed similar logic, but with political squabbles about whose “zero” would count.
  • Quote: “It's adopted through the quintessential American process. Of having large corporations lobby for it and get the system adopted that way.”
    (Chad Orzell, 28:24)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the essence of DST:
  “It’s a question of priorities and what are you looking for? … We like having both of those—late summer evenings and brighter winter mornings—and we would lose those if we picked just one.” (Chad Orzell, 04:17)
• On changing the clocks:
  “Everybody says they hate it because it's inconvenient like twice a year, right?... But as I said at the beginning, it gets us two things that we like.” (Chad Orzell, 22:53)
• Bob Crawford’s relatable moment:
  “I gotta say, I travel a lot ... and every time we hit central Tennessee ... and you get that extra hour, you really feel like you're, you're beating time, you know, like you're really getting something in your pocket.” (Bob Crawford, 21:34)
• On trying and failing with permanent DST:
  “Without, if you stay on the daylight saving time that we use in the summer, then sunrise in a lot of east coast cities in December is like 9 in the morning ... and people hate that even more than they hate resetting their clocks.” (Chad Orzell, 23:02)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction & Today’s Question (03:03)
• Pre-standard time: How people used local solar noon (05:24)
• Birth of time zones: Railroads, telegraphs, and Cleveland Abbe’s lobby (07:57–11:55)
• Time zones and Greenwich Mean Time (12:14–12:46, 28:50)
• DST’s wartime origins and US adoption (13:55–15:25)
• Quirky state exceptions (Arizona, Hawaii, Indiana) (19:26–22:30)
• The failure of year-round DST (22:51–24:17)
• DST is inconvenient—but serves a purpose (24:49–26:36)
• Time, business, and capitalism (28:03–29:50)

Conclusion & Where to Find Chad Orzell

Chad Orzell’s work and Substack can be found under his own name, and his books—including A Brief History of Timekeeping—are available wherever books are sold.

Final word:
“It’s really easy to coordinate activities over the kind of span that you can drive in a car in a day. And that works out pretty nicely and makes everybody's lives a lot easier ... It's not that much more of a disruption to have to change the clocks every now and then ... and then you get those nice long summer evenings.” (Chad Orzell, 27:05–28:03)