When Marcus M. Marks, the former Borough President of Manhattan, died in 1934, the first words of his obituary in the New York Times recalled his timeliest pursuit:
Above all else it will be remembered of MARCUS M. MARKS that he caused the sun to advance in its Summer course by putting forward the clocks which measure the hours of light and darkness.
Every year, the observance of Daylight Saving Time sends us scurrying through the house—well, maybe dragging our feet—to reset clocks an hour ahead. Of course this annual chore pays off pleasantly by extending daylight into evening. But a sister task to this domestic detail—to stick a fresh battery in the smoke alarm—may also recall New York’s role in promoting Daylight Saving’s history as a vital wartime stratagem for saving energy.
World War I
“During World War I, DST was first adopted in Germany, which was quickly followed by Britain and countries on both sides, and eventually, America,” writes David Prerau in Seize the Daylight, an exhaustive history of Daylight Saving Time. “Daylight replaced artificial lighting and saved precious fuel for the war effort.”
In 1916 that decisive wartime conservation effort in America advanced with the formation of the National Daylight Saving Association. Its president was New York City’s own Marcus M. Marks, the standing Manhattan Borough President who had begun his term with great popular support by opening four new outdoor public markets.
On December 2, 1917, Marks urged the U.S. House of Representatives to follow the Senate’s wisdom in approving the Daylight Saving bill. “When city lights are ordered dimmed and when manufacturing is curtailed so as to save the coal used in producing electric current and power,” Marks reasoned, “our attention is forcibly called to a simple plan that has been suggested to save a million tons of coal during the Summer months.”
Marks reported that “officials in Canada and Nova Scotia (whose sovereignty sentiments were still topical)” were all set to follow the United States adoption of a daylight saving plan. Pointing out the benefits of turning the clock an hour ahead, he said, “England saved 300,000 tons of coal in the Summer of 1916,” he said, “and France saved $10,000,000 in coal and light.”
Daylight Saving Controversy
Congress laid out time zones and enacted Daylight Saving in 1918 as a wartime economic measure, yet its first operative work day also indicted nationwide commercial benefits for business concerns, employees and shoppers. However once the war was over, many took a dim view of the observance during peacetime.
Prerau reports that after World War I ended, farmers were particularly successful in getting President Woodrow Wilson to reinstate “God's Time” by repealing Daylight Saving Time. And Daylight Saving Time began sputtering out across the country.
In January 1920, the Times reported National Daylight Saving Association President Marks—his term as Manhattan Borough President having ended in 1918—going up to Albany to implore New York’s Legislatures to rally against passage of proposed repeal, and urged citizens to “rain protests on their Assemblymen and Senators.”
“The people must wake up if the Daylight Saving law is to remain on the stature books of this State,” Marks insisted. He further promised, “New York City will have daylight saving no matter what is done in Albany.”
In January 1921, Marks took Wayne County Assemblyman Charles H. Betts to task for a daylight saving repeal bill. He contended that Congress’s act against the practice did not undo “the power of the States and cities to regulate their own time.” He dismissed Betts’ “fossilized” claim that daylight saving “upsets nature’s plans” and argued that farmers were historically time savers, who shouldn’t begrudge townsfolk “the same health and economic benefits.”
Daylight Saving Eight Months Long
As the twentieth century ticked on, Daylight Saving debates and laws fluctuated with a new world war in the 1940s, a peacetime energy crunch during the Arab Oil Embargo of the 1970s, and a variety of extenuating conditions. Prerau notes its impact on issues as disparate as draft status during the Vietnam War, Halloween revelry, election voter turnout, and transportation schedules and crime statistics.
Since 2007, the terms of an energy policy act has extended the length of Daylight Saving Time to its present eight-month length in all states except Arizona and Hawaii. The time change begins on the second Sunday of March and ends the first Sunday of November.
Marks, indeed, did not originate the idea of Daylight Saving, whose earlier proponents included American Benjamin Franklin and Britisher William Willet. Yet, as the concept’s most public face, he became what the Times described as “the acknowledged leader in the "daylight-saving" movement in America, with its immeasurable wholesome results in the lives of millions.”
Indeed, today’s practice of Daylight Saving is a much farther stretch than Marks would ever likely have imagined, as surely as the day is long.
Sources:
- New York Times, December 3, 1917; April 2, 1918; January 8, 1920; January 29, 1921.
- Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time, by David S. Prerau,(Thunder’s Mouth Press; Avalon), 2005.
Eric K. Washington - Eric K. Washington is the author of Manhattanville: Old Heart of West Harlem and contributed to the recent MTA-licensed guide book, New ...
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