Love it or hate it, Daylight Saving Time (DST) is upon us. On Sunday March 12 we “spring forward” one hour, thereby “losing” an hour on the clock in order to force more sunlight into the afternoon. Interestingly, the “spring forward” day consists of only 23 hours instead of 24. Conversely, the “fall back” day when we return to Standard Time in the Fall results in a 25-hour day.
Logistically, when you wake up on Sunday morning, clocks in your phone, car, computer, and elsewhere will probably already display the accurate time due to the clock’s internal computer programming and/or reliance on the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s WWVB time signal radio station, which is generated for the atomic clock near Ft. Collins, Colorado. Meanwhile, clocks in your coffeemaker and perhaps hanging on your walls will need to be manually changed to DST, either by pressing buttons on a digital clock or rotating a wheel on an analog clock to advance the hour hand by one hour.
But what about before we had such electronic and computational trickery?
DST was standardized for the entire U.S. under the Uniform Time Act of 1966. Prior to that, DST was temporarily used during, for example, World Wars I and II, earning the name “War Time” in addition to Daylight Saving Time.
Along with this nationwide and permanent standardization came an increased opportunity for innovation and invention.
For example, in 1966, inventor John L. Hanson received a patent for his Time Correction Device for Master Clocks. The invention concerned correcting (or setting) the time on a master clock which then corrects and sets secondary clocks. The patent explains:
“Due to the complex nature of conventional master clocks and the fact that each correction for going on and off ‘Daylight Savings’ time is made only once a year, regular staff personnel usually face the problem of unfamiliarity and, therefore, in the past, it was usually necessary for a clock service specialist to make a rather technical and time-consuming manual adjustment of the master clock.”
So how did Mr. Hanson get his master clock to adjust for DST? He used two drive motors as described below:
“When the master clock is operating on normal power and it is desired to advance the master clock, for example, one hour to ‘Daylight Saving’ time, the manual actuation of my device causes the secondary drive mechanism to drive the movement of the master clock at twice its regular speed for one hour, that is, the movement of the master clock is advanced two hours during a one hour period of time. After one hour, my device causes the Secondary drive mechanism to be rendered inoperative while maintaining power to the primary drive motor, whereby, the movement of the master clock is then re stored to its regular speed.
In order to retard the movement of the master clock for one hour for resetting it from ‘Daylight Savings’ time to ‘Standard’ time, the manual actuation of my device causes the normal power to the primary drive motor to be interrupted while at the same time maintaining the secondary drive mechanism inoperative, thus, stopping the master clock. After one hour, my device causes normal power to be restored to the primary drive motor to drive the master clock at its regular speed.”
So, to “spring forward,” he ran his clock at double-speed via the secondary drive mechanism for one hour. To “fall back” he simply stopped the clock for an hour to “lose” the hour in the Fall.
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