History of Standard Time

Mankind has always had a way of telling time to keep some form of order. Some of the earliest forms of keeping time to schedule farming and knowing when to move from one area to another were hourglasses, sundials, and water clocks. Even pyramids and other tall structures were made specifically for keeping up with the time of the day and the seasons. Each of these worked for specific sects of people, but it would be a long time before one massive form of telling time would emerge.

What is currently known worldwide as standard time would not start to be developed until 1840 in Britain. This would be the first country to develop a country wide standard of keeping time, and it was all thanks to the development of the railroad.

The idea of uniform time is credited to Dr. William Hyde Wollaston, but it was Abraham Follett Oster who really got the ball moving. The Great Western Railway would be the first railroad company to adopt this idea of keeping time, but within seven years of doing so, most of the railways in London had taken up this same method. In 1847, the Railway Clearing House actually recommended that all railways make the adjustment as soon as the General Post Office permitted it. By 1855 most public clocks were using GMT, and others were combining it with their local time. Finally, in 1880 after a long stubborn route, the legal system passed the Statutes (Definition of Time) Act and switched to GMT also.

In 1883, the United States and Canada, who were still largely using local times, instituted standard time in time zones. This was also largely thanks to the role the railroads played in the countries; however, many areas would continue using local time. Detroit, for example, kept local time until 1900. After the City Council decreed to use standard time, half of the people refused, and shortly after the city returned to sun time until 1905 when Central Standard Time was adopted with a vote.

Detroit was not the only city in the U.S. or Canada to be hesitant about standard time adoption. The actual use of it would not become common practice until 1918 when the U.S. passed the Standard Time Act. This was the same year that Daylight Savings Time was adopted by the United States, and was the beginning of time zones that would actually (and still do) change over time.

Source: http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/d.html

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