Whose Time is it Anyway? A Brief History of Standardized Time Zones in the United States

The following is a guest post by Charlotte Milliken, a former intern with the Creative Digital Publications Program of the Law Library of Congress. She is currently working towards a master’s degree in English at Tulane University.

Standardized time zones are something most Americans take for granted. Yet they are the result of an ambitious project, brought about by the coordinated efforts of transportation officials, railroad engineers, and scientists all over the country. To call this project important would be an understatement in my view; it created the organizational scaffolding upon which long-distance transportation could advance and exemplifies how new technology has restructured human society.

Time for Trains

Time in the late 19th century was a regional affair. Cities would set their clocks by measuring the path of the sun across the meridian. Across latitudinal distances, however, these times would vary, creating a patchwork of localized time zones, over 144 in North America! This presented challenges for long-distance travel, which was becoming more commonplace thanks to the explosive growth of railroads. Much of this growth can be attributed to the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, which funded the construction of a transcontinental railroad stretching from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. By 1865, there were an estimated 35,000 miles of track spanning the United States.

Railroads had developed their own internal system of precise timekeeping well before a larger system was ever implemented. Most adhered to the time zone of their home city, or another major city along the line. While many lines began to merge under common regional time zones, there were still an estimated 80 different time zones by the early 1880s. This made traveling by train a confusing ordeal; passengers needed to keep track of the different time standards used for the arrival and departure of trains, and stations used multiple clocks to keep track of the standards used by each railroad. As Charles F. Dowd wrote, “[t]he traveler’s watch was to him but a delusion; clocks at stations staring each other in the face defiant of harmony either with one another or with surrounding local time and all wildly at variance with the traveler’s watch, baffled all intelligent interpretation.”

Proposals at Play

Charles Dowd was the first to propose regional standardized time zones as a solution to this traveler’s dilemma. In 1870, he published a pamphlet entitled “A System of National Time and its Application, by Means of Hour and Minute Indexes, to the National Railway Time-table,” which detailed a plan to divide the country into four time zones, each set one hour apart. The first zone was centered on the 75th meridian west of Greenwich, with the others assigned at the 90th,105th, and 120th meridian. Dowd presented his plan to railroad officials but faced great hurdles in getting his plan approved. Sir Sanford Fleming, the chief engineer of the Governmental Railways of Canada, also proposed a universal time standard in his 1876 memoir Terrestrial Time. Unlike Dowd, Fleming sought to create an international time standard, operating on a 24-hour clock. In 1879, the American Meteorology Society established the Committee on Standard Time at the behest of Cleveland Abbe, who advocated for standardized time as a means of ensuring accurate weather forecasts.

Faced with mounting pressure to adopt a uniform time standard, the rail companies feared a government intervention that might undercut their profits. In October of 1881, railroad officials brought the issue to the General Time Convention, an organization of American railroad companies. Convention secretary and Traveler’s Official Railway Guide publisher, William F. Allen was commissioned to develop a proposal for standardized time. Allen drew from the ideas of Dowd, Fleming, and Abbe to devise a system of regional time zones. However, he also sought out the opinions of railroad engineers and officials, printing a notice in the Traveler’s Official Railroad Guide soliciting opinions on the subject. On October 11, 1883, the General Time Convention gathered at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Chicago, and Allen presented his plan. He called for the adoption of five time zones based upon the mean sun-time on the 75th, 90th, 105th, and 120th meridians west of Greenwich, each set one hour apart. The majority of the railroad officials voted in favor of his plan, and it was decided that railroad clocks across the country would be set to the new standard at noon on November 18, 1883.

The Day of Two Noons

Once they had agreed on a plan, the railroad companies needed to ensure the cooperation of the American public. Railroad officials visited city governments to persuade them to adopt the new time standard. Newspapers across the country detailed instructions for adjusting watches and clocks, and printed maps outlining the new time zones. Both the United States Naval Observatory and the Allegheny Observatory in Pittsburgh agreed to send out a telegraph signal to help the railroad companies synchronize their clocks. On November 18, 1883, the clock struck noon twice in several cities: once at the previous local time, and once at the new standard time. Thus it was colloquially referred to as the “Day of Two Noons.”

Thanks to the meticulous planning of railroad officials, the transition into standardized time was almost seamless. Most cities adopted the new time standard immediately, and many more converted within the next year. However, public opinion was divided. While most found the new system convenient, some objected to what they considered a violation of the natural order. The Indianapolis Sentinel published a particularly scathing condemnation of railroad time, as follows:

“People will have to marry by railroad time and die by railroad time. Ministers will be required to preach by railroad time—banks will open and close by railroad time—in fact, the Railroad Convention has taken charge of the time business, and the people may as well set about adjusting their affairs in accordance with its decree…We presume the sun, moon and stars will make an attempt to ignore the orders of the Railroad Convention, but they, too, will have to give in at last.”

While these concerns were clearly hyperbolic, the Indianapolis Sentinel had struck upon a very real truth: the operations of businesses would increasingly organize the lives of the American people. Standardized time was here to stay.

Living in Standardized Time

The system created by railroad officials remained the standard until 1918 when Congress passed the Standard Time Act (40 Stat. 450). This act incorporated standardized time into federal law and placed the authority to set time zone boundaries in the hands of the Interstate Commerce Commission. It also created Daylight Savings Time (DST), although this was repealed after World War I. However, in 1942, Congress enacted the War Time Act (56 Stat. 9), reintroducing DST year-round as a means of conserving energy until the war ended. At that time, the issue of DST was left with local governments, again creating a convoluted patchwork of regional time zones. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson passed the Uniform Time Act (89 Stat. 387), ending the confusion by “promot[ing] the observance of a uniform system of time throughout the United States.”

The current system of standardized time in the United States remains largely the same as that first introduced by the railroad companies, although the boundaries of time zones have shifted here and there as counties have appealed for relocation. Despite passenger trains gradually falling out of fashion in favor of the automobile and airplane, time zones are an enduring legacy of the railroad.

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