Jane Licthenberg has a blog entry over at the Indy Star that insinuates Hoosiers opposing adoption of Eastern Daylight Time did so because they were too stupid to work a clock. Thanks Jane.
Masson's Blog
Jane Licthenberg has a blog entry over at the Indy Star that insinuates Hoosiers opposing adoption of Eastern Daylight Time did so because they were too stupid to work a clock. Thanks Jane.
Really? Too dumb… I’ve heard this before, when the legislature was debating the issue. I for one am tired of being insulted, and this issue has really pushed me over the edge. You migt be interested in why one Hoosier is simply *ignoring* the time change.
http://www.haxton.org/weblog/Politics/myRealObjectionToDST.html
Be well,
Dave H.
I dont think the rest of the country can have any inkling as to why the time issue is so emotional in Indina.And stories,like what’s going on in Pulaski County currently are amazing to people,like it or not they are human interest ‘americana’ stories. I mean no disrepect,because I have lots of ties to Indiana,but its like ‘is this all they have to worry about?’
INDIANA
Is it okay to assume that the people who want DST were too dumb to add and subtract 1, 2, 3, etc. for the last thirty-odd years?
;-)
20 minutes ago, I would have said the answer to that is no. But then I stumbled across the Daily Princetonian column that is the subject of my next post.
. It recently occurred to me that two generations have been born and grown to adulthood since that day 45 years ago when the ICC place part of Indiana into the Eastern Zone and divided the state forever more. Many people under 55 may think it is the natural order of things for Indiana to be in the Eastern Zone because I doubt they have ever been taught any different and they certainly have not been told by the news media.
The opposition has attempted to cast us as a group of overly emotional Neanderthal obstructionists blocking the path to progress. And they have also framed the argument to be about daylight time when it is in fact about time zones. I found it very condescending and insulting for them to instruct us how to change our clocks. Their arguments consist of unproven assertions. They have also made statements that are absolutely false. Such as the state is more united than ever before when in fact it more divided than last year when all 92 counties clocks were legally set to the same time between the first of April and the end of October. Just now it was mention on the radio that this is the first time in over thirty years that we will observe daylight time. The truth is we are one of the few locales in the nation that observed daylight time (Central Daylight) all year. What we have this year is actually double daylight time. Their stated objective was to bring Indiana time in sync with the rest of the nation. Sunday, April 2nd, the sunrise for New York City was at 6:38 EDT, for Indianapolis 7:28 EDT, and for Chicago 6:32 CDT.
Doug:
You are way too nice! I’ve always thought that not *wanting* to add and subtract was the real reason that some people insisted that most of Indiana go on EDT, rather than remain on EST year round or (heaven forbid!) move the entire state into the Central Time Zone. I really think that the pro DST people want to be on the same time as NY year round. People in my part of the state (formerly your part) were so used to doing the math, because it was just part of our daily lives–and not confusing.
Didn’t Kid Napoleon go to Princeton? Maybe he learned how not to add and subtract there? I am too mean!
People in MI,OH or KY don’t complain about ET( do they?) and that makes Hoosiers look like emotional isolationists by comparision.If there is dissatisfaction in bordering states those favoring CT should get them involved. A regional consensus would be the way to go in future,if that’s feasible.Lets not forget that when IN went to ET about 1960, MI and KY came along ,AND since then Cincinnati area has been going on DST, and they used to stay EST year round,as Indiana used to.Louisville used to be on CT.It’s a different ball game, as they say.
Well, no. I think step one is to make our elected officials pay the price at the polls for taking anju action such as this without consensus. Eastern Daylight Time was never the preference of a majority of Hoosiers. Without such a consensus, our legislators should have just left well enough alone.
In reply to Lou. The situation in Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky is different from what it is in Indiana. The Eastern/Central boundary line (82.5 deg. w. longitude) passes through all 3 states while Indiana is completely in one zone. Draw a north/south line about 30 miles east of Columbus and that is the natural boundary. Around 1915 the people in Detroit voted to be in the Eastern zone. The vote most likely was influenced by Detroit being a port city on Lake Erie and the other major ports, Cleveland and Buffalo, observed eastern. In 1970 Michigan had a referendum on DST and it passed because Detroit had the most votes. I do not know how Ohio became all eastern because the original railroad zones of 1883 had all the state in the central zone. However it happen it was wise to not divide the state because it is much better to put a boundary at the state line than at the county line. Kentucky, because it is so wide, was not going to escape being divided. Until 1961 the Kentucky boundary was an extension of the Indiana/Ohio line. Then in 1961 Louisville and 43 counties in Indiana were moved to the Eastern zone by the ICC. This was reluctantly accepted by us until 1966 when Congress passed the Uniform Time Act which required Michigan, western Ohio, Louisville, and half the state of Indiana to observe EDT. The act was amended in 1972 to allow the eastern half of Indiana to observed EST.
Why so many of us are so upset is because we never had a voice in the matter. This condition of being a divided state and all its accompanying problems was imposed upon us by decree. The center of Indiana, Indianapolis, is 200 miles from the middle of the Central zone and 589 miles from the center of the Eastern zone.
Lou, you have some knowledge of Ohio’s time history. I have many voids and would appreciate any information you can provide. I think Ohio was the key state in this zone issue. If the boundary had been placed on its eastern border in would have changed the location in many other states such as Michigan, Kentucky, Tenn. and Georgia.
One of my points was that homerule was very common everywhere before the uniform time act of 1966.I remember Cincinatti being on yearlong EST in the 50s.But im sure Cleveland pushed clocks ahead. You just could not predict what time any city would be on in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.Many smaller towns and cities stayed on STANDARD time year round,but it was by statewide also in some states. I was a gradeschooler in the 50s,and it used to be fascinating to travel to a town we hadnt been to see what time it was going to be.I can certainly see why The Fedral Govt passed a uniform time act and REQUIRED everyone to adopt Standard along with ‘Fast’ Time,starting and ending on the same date .
Up til 1966, Minnnesta would observe DST from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Wiconsin would observe it from April to end of September and Illinois would have it til last of October. By that time the indidiviudal setting of clocks by towns had stopped as I remember.Iowa never observed statewide DST until the uniform time act of 1966,and I think Iowa was on statewide yearlong Standard time.So its hard to judge by time zone alone,when there was so much homerule.It’s irrelevant what state was on CT and which was on ET.
Indiana and Illinois was mostly the same, until the 60s when Indiana went an hour ahead.But I remember one year when Michigan maintained yearlong EST and Indiana had EDT.The next year it was reserved and has stayed that way til this year. Im speaking as an Illinois and Wisconsin resident.Wisconsin stayed on CST year round til about 1960.I havent done any research.. I just remember the time chaos which for a 8-9 yr old was great fun.
So I look at Indiana going on DST as one of the last of the homerule areas conforming.There was a time when time was optional and no one cared.
To Lou regarding attitudes in Michigan on ET/CT. The ET/CT as well as the DST controversies raged for 50 years (from the mid-1920’s to the mid-1970’s) in Michigan with Detroit pushing ET and DST and Grand Rapids tending toward ET without DST or CT. I recall reading that Gerald Ford, as a congressman from Grand Rapids, was among the anti-DST politicians. During this period the time controversy in Michigan was much more prominent on the national stage than that in Indiana was.
For many years the Michgan lower penisula was on ET and the upper penisula on CT. Michigan unified the state on Eastern Time by not observing DST. After passage of the Uniform Time Act of 1966 the state narrowly confirmed year round standard time in a statewide referendum. In 1970, in a second referendum, the state’s voters (led by Detroit and Flint) approved DST. In the aftermath of that vote four western upper penisula counties petitioned the DOT to move to CT, a move which was approved before DST went into effect in 1971. To this day those four counties along the Wisconsin border remain CT.
One of the oddities of that period is that during the summer of 1970 all of Indiana observed DST while Michigan did not. The very next year Indian was not on DST while Michigan was. Folks along most of the Indiana/Michigan line absorbed a two hour net time shift in just over six months.
ET with DST remained controversial in Michigan for a few years, particularly during January 1974 when Nixon imposed winter time DST. Sunrise on 7 January 1974 came at 9:14 a.m. in Grand Rapids. My wife, who was in school in Kalamazoo at the time, tells me that Michigan’s governor “suspended” Nixon’s decree shortly thereafter and that Michigan did not observe DST during the “emergency” periods, but continued to observe it during its legal periods. (To the best of my recollection, Indiana was exempt from Nixon’s order, so for nearly a full year we were fully in sync with Chicago.)
I am aware that some sentiment still lingers in western Michigan for CT (possibly fed by a general disgust with Detroit). During the recent time zone debate in South Bend, during which Cass County Michigan atively opposed St. Joseph County’s petition, one of the Cass County Commissioners said, if effect, that Cass County ought to be on CT itself and stop listening to Detroit.
I think it possible that the extension of DST into March and November may kindle some interst in other parts of the western UP in moving to Central, but I’ve not seen anything concrete on that as yet.
Wow, Paul! Your knowledge of Michigan’s time issues is impressive. I did attend college in East Lansing for two years. I know that many of us were thrown off when we had to be on EDT for about two months near the end of the academic year. It was hard to study in the spring anyway. Then when it was still light at almost 10:00 p.m.–forget it!
Doug, your blog is so educational you should consider awarding degrees. Lou, thank you for your prompt reply. You must have been very aware at a young age to have remembered those details. Thank you Paul for sharing your exceptional knowledge with us.
The 1966 Act was necessary but it created major problems for states that were divided into 2 zones, Most of eastern Indiana was observing Central Daylight all year in the late fifties in order to be the same as western Ohio and Michigan both of which were on EST all year. The General Assembly in 1957 tried to prevent this practice but the law was easily circumvented and the reaction to the 1957 law was to petition the ICC to place part of Indiana into the Eastern Zone so that they could escape the whims of the General Assembly. The Uniform Time Act forced the eastern counties to observe EDT which was very unpopular. In 1972 the Act was amended to allow part of the state to be on Central Daylight and the eastern counties to be EST year round.
My objection is to EDT not CDT because 4:15 am CST sunrises in June don’t make anymore sense than 8:10 am EDT sunrises in late October. What really makes us mad is the manner by which EDT was imposed upon us. No elected official campaigned for EDT in 2004. Mitch Daniels did campaign for daylight time but when question which zone he led us to believe he favored Central Time. He might be politically smarter than we expected because if he had said Eastern Daylight he would have lost the election.
Jim,
It wasnt the time itself. It was what time the CUBS baseball game started. Chicago and Cincinnati were on the SAME time.And other events like that.Why did the sun rise in wisconsin at 4 am ( no DST) in summer and later in Illinois…things like that kids notice.But thats why time is SO important to people and its not just an academic study.
One interesting point is that starting in the late 50s, especially after 1960 there was considerable changes in times with an attempt to codify and stablize. Cities and counties setting their own times had largely disappeared,and there was more and more adoption of DST,altough each state came up with different compromises,so that DST was in function for different lenghts of time. I think this more than anything else hastened the need for the Uniform Time Act of 1966.
And in the 50s when train travel was the main means for long distance family travel,the railroads maintained their schedules in STANDARD TIME nationwide, and there was always some question whether we were talking ‘real time’ or ‘railroad time’, so it was not uncommon to arrive at railroad station more than an hour early,just to make sure not to miss the train.You could never be sure what time reference the person telling you the time was using.
I think more than anything else the Interstate Highway system hastened the need for predictable times. After mid-60s long haul, nonstop travel was becoming more and more viable.
And maybe some of you Hoosiers might appreciate this:I STILL remember my father cussing because we hit Ft Wayne during rush hour with no good bypass!Fort Wayne used to be on THE MAIN route to Chicago from everywhere East.
For anyone who is interested in old maps of time zones.
I did an internet search,starting with ‘CRAM Historic USA time zone map'( CRAM did lots of 19th century usa maps,and search CRAM first for historic maps)I found a copy of the very first USA time zone map ever printed in 1887.
The original time zone map includes a chart above to tell how much each city would be off from actual sun time. THe orginal ET/CT boundary was at PA/OH border and CT included all of KY an TN, GA,and FL and it looks like a small section of SE SC.Indiana was ‘buried’ in CTZ. The original CTZ was gigantic, extending all the way from the Appalachians to the Rockies.Longitudingly, it is logical to include FL in CT because Miami sets directly South of Pittsburg,and Pittsburg on this first map was on Western end of ET! Time zones were established for sake of railroad travel so railrods could print fixed schedules for whole country( a new concept).
I have no idea how long this map was in effect or if it was optional except for railroad use ,which I assume. Going back to the 1930 I can find no map where CTZ is drawn farther east than IN/OH border.Early 20th century maps do split GA and put Atlanta just inside CTZ. A small corner of extreme SW MI was in CTZ til about 1950.
But we must always remember that until 1966 time was often at local discretion and time zones were not enforced. A good example is Cincinnati.. always on ET was still the same time as Chicago(always on CT),at least during summer, until about 1960.
Before about 1930 you could rarely find a US map with time zones shown. They just werent an issue. It’s with widespread radio listening and automobile travel that people became aware of what time it was somewhere else.
Lou,
Sounds fascinating. Too bad you didn’t include any hyperlinks — now I’ll have to go Google this info for myself.
Props on a good research topic.
http://store.pastpresentcorp.com/crams18anmap54.html
Above is link for the 1887 time zone map,which is for sale..Otherwise I just added info I had picked up along the way