Daylight Savings Time. M'eh

 World War One era poster promoting Daylight Savings Time.  The thought here is that people leaving work would now have more time to work on their gardens at home, which I suppose might have been true.

From 2013:

Today In Wyoming's History: March 10. Daylight Savings Time

Today In Wyoming's History: March 10: Today, for 2013, is the dread advent of Daylight Savings Time, in which the weary are deprived of an hour of sleep.

And the day in which those, who on the evening prior, received the promise that "no, I won't be hard to wake up" have been told a fib yet again, as those who must be awakened transfer their anger and wrath about the early arrival of the dawn to the human messenger.

Postscript:

I don't know if its a product of age, but I find it increasingly difficult to adjust to either end of Daylight Savings Time, and as a consequence, I'm not so fond of it.

I used to be able to very easily switch from one time to another, but now I invariably wake up early when we go forward in the Fall.  I've been waking up earlier and earlier in recent weeks anyway, but I really don't want to start routinely getting up at 4:00. But now, I'm wide awake at that time.

I really wonder about the value of Daylight Savings Time in this modern age.  Is there one?  I'd be just as happy if we chose to hence forth forgo it.  Outside of North America, do other nations have it?

For whatever reason, I've been finding myself waking up at 4:00 a lot recently, so this "fall back" season is really the pits.

Frankly, I think the entire Daylight Savings Time thing has long ago lost whatever value it ever had, if it ever had one.  I wish we'd knock it off and just keep the time straight. I'm skeptical that it ever really worked the way it was intended to anyhow.

There's debate on whose ideal Daylight Savings Time was in the first place.  Some attribute it, in modern times, to a New Zealander who advocated so as to be able to have more time to pursue his hobby of bug collecting, which he did in the evening. Others attribute it to an Englishman who liked to golf, and who lamented how so many Londoners had to sleep through part of the day.  Some even blame Ben Franklin, failing to understand that his suggestion didn't receive implementation anywhere and was more of an observation on Paris life, than a real suggestion. Indeed, in that era, adjusting the time would have made very little sense.

What is clear is that the Germans foisted this on the world during World War One, thereby putting it in the same category as Unrestricted Submarine Warfare and Poison Gas in my mind. This was to allow more daylight hours for industrial workers and an attendant fuel savings, somehow (probably less dark hours at work).  The Allied nations followed suit. Following the Great War, not all of them went back to natural time.

 United Cigar Company poster urging people to write Congress to pass a Daylight Savings bill. Why this company cared about this, I have not a clue.  One more reason, in my view, to disapprove of the tobacco companies.

The U.S. went to Daylight Savings Time in March, 1918, when we also adopted standard time zones.  Adopting time zones made sense, and perhaps Daylight Savings Time did in the context of the war.  Americans, however, hated Daylight Savings Time and Congress abolished it, overriding President Wilson's veto of the repealing act, after World War One.   It was a local option thereafter, except during World War Two when it was re-instituted on a national level.  In 1966, Congress brought it back, but did allow states to opt out.  Exempting out of it is obviously a problem in a country with interstate business travel as the norm, and only Hawaii and Arizona have done so over a long period, although some other states have toyed with it.

I know that opting out my state is impossible, but I wish it would.  The purpose of this law has long passed, and adjusting to time changes is a pain.

As far as I am concerned, "S. D." can just go.