The Adoption of Standard Time IAN R. BARTKY Despite some “originators’ ” claims, standard time was not adopted primarily to bring order to the chaos of railroad timetables.1 Indeed, the railroads did not need standard time for their operations. Rather, in the 1870s scientific pursuits requiring simultaneous observations from scattered points became important, and those needs led to pro posals for federal action in the early 1880s. In response to these pressures from scientists, railroad superintendents and managers im plemented a standard time system on November 18, 1883, a system tailored to their companies’ train schedules. Thereby they effectively forestalled any federal intervention in civil time for over thirty years. As the railroads introduced standard time, most American cities collaborated, passing ordinances that shifted their civil times to the new system. In almost all large cities these shifts were small—a few Dr. Bartky now works at Headquarters, U.S. Army Laboratory Command, in Adel phi, Maryland. He has testified officially before Congress and written on public aspects of time. He is indebted to Professor Allan Lefcowitz of the U.S. Naval Academy, and to Elizabeth Bartky for continuous encouragement. Paul Moore of the National Railway Publication Company—still publishers of the Travelers' Guide—very generously brought two unpublished theses to his attention and let him examine Allen’s “before” map; Carlene Stephens of the National Museum of American History made numerous useful comments during the preparation of the manuscript and provided some early railroad time references. The research was supported by the National Bureau of Standards, and material may be quoted. •Accounts by the principals and their direct descendants include: William E Allen, “Report on the Adoption of Standard Time,” Proceedings of the General Time Convention and Its Successor. . . the American Railway Association, appendix (1893?): 702 — 3; William F. Allen, “History of the Movement by Which the Adoption of Standard Time Was Con summated,” Proceedings of the American Metrological Society 4 (1884): 25—50 (hereafter cited as PAMS)', William F. Allen, Short History of Standard Time and Its Adoption in North America in 1883 (New York, 1904), 17 pp.; John S. Allen, Standard Time in America: Why and How It Came about and the Part Taken by the Railroads and William Frederick Allen (New York, 1951), 20 pp.; Charles F. Dowd, “Origin and Early History of the New System of National Time,” PAMS 4 (1884): 90—101; Charles N. Dowd, Charles F. Dowd, A.M., Ph.D.—a Narrative of His Services in Originating and Promoting the System of Standard Time (New York, 1930), 32 pp.; Sandford Fleming, “Universal or Cosmic Time,” Proceedings of the Canadian Institute 21 (July 1885): 5 — 24; and Truman Abbe, Professor Abbe . . . and© 1989 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040- 165X/89/3001 -0004501.00 25 26 Ian R. Bartky minutes at most; and no citizen could discern any difference “beforeand -after.” The imperceptibility of the shift—actually a fundamental change in keeping civil time—led to standard time’s immediate suc cess, allowing its transformation from a specialized time—railroad time—to the time we live by. Where the shifts in time were large, opposition arose. Though few in number and not organized, citizens in these locales blocked stan dard time’s adoption. In fact, a dual time system continued in this country until 1918, when the federal government began to legislate civil time; and local option in time-system observance continued until 1967, when the federal government finally preempted all civil-time statutes. Even today, the United States’ civil-time system is not uni form: About 3 percent of the population lives in areas that do not observe daylight saving time.2 This continuing opposition to uniform the Isobars: The Story of Cleveland Abbe, America's First Weatherman (New York, 1955), pp. 143—51. For a comparison of Dowd’s and Allen’s claims, see Ian R. Bartky, “The Invention of Railroad Time,” Railroad History 148 (1983): 13 — 22. In addition, there are numerous accounts, generally incorrect, in newspapers and magazines. The first published analysis is Robert E. Riegel, “Standard Time in the United States,” American Historical Review 33 (1927): 84 — 89, which displays a general...