Where Did We Get Time Zones?

By Jacob C. Maichel

In the 1800s time was very loose to say the least. People could not move faster than the speed of horses so schedules were pretty tentative, which wasn’t a big deal in their relatively slow moving lives. As the United States began to industrialize and develop factories, steamboats, mail, etc time needed to be more uniform inside of towns. Each town decided on its own official town time creating thousands of unique time zones across the United States. Michigan, for example, had 38 different times alone! 

 With the invention of the railroad everything changed as the country opened up. A trip from New York to Chicago that had taken a month by horse could now be completely in two days on a train. Variations in times was not only a scheduling nightmare but ultimately a safety hazard as trains sometimes hit each other due to timing confusions. The railroad’s solution was to make each train its own traveling “time zone”, so that no matter where it went it was based on the time where the line was based out of.

During this period William F. Allen was the secretary general of the time convention and had no shortage of people reaching out to him pleading to change the outdated time system. By the 1870s trains were common across the country as the United States shifted from a collection of towns to one uniform country. In the 1980s the scientific community struggled with meteorologists not being able to collaborate on anything, such as times of shooting star sightings. Allen decided to take on the task of standardizing time as we know it by splitting the country into zones.

Allen begins by going to the Boston Railroads with the idea. They promptly deny him stating they only set time via the Harvard observatory. Rather than admit defeat Allen simply convinces the Harvard observatory to adopt his plan and soon after the city of Boston follows. Allen next approaches the city of New York arguing time may become known as Boston Time if they reject him, which was all the convincing needed to get New York to agree.

As more cities began to adopt the plan there was push back. One preacher was so against it he was quoted saying “we follow God’s time not railroad time” and then smashed his watch on the pulpit. Another notable objection came from the attorney general who stated that government buildings go off of D.C. time. However, enough States adopted Allen’s plan that his objection was ignored. The plan continued and Allen’s team mapped out 4 different time zones that we are familiar with today.

At 12 noon on November 18, 1883 all time is set to become standardized. They used telegraph lines to notify balls across the country of the exact moment to drop and start counting time. These dropping balls eventually give way to the traditional ball dropping in New York every new year. Though there was still some disagreements in 1918 standardized time was officially adopted by the U.S. Federal Government, and in 1966 they abolished all local times. 


References

Helm, Sally, Host. Episode 918 “The Day Of Two Noons”. Planet Money, NPR, 7 June, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730727038/episode-918-the-day-of-two-noons

Jacob C. Maichel is a Graduate Assistant at the Gwartney Institute and an MBA student at Ottawa University