Spring forward, fall back

Photo of old clocks by Flickr user servus. Published under Creative Commons license.

Don't forget to set your clocks back an hour tonight: Daylight Saving Time ends at 2am on Sunday, November 6.

Merrimack Patch editor Carol Robidoux writes today that Daylight Saving has been the subject of much controversy in the U.S. over the last century, especially in rural areas:

By the end of WWI, city dwellers learned to love daylight saving, [Daylight Saving expert David] Prerau said. But country folk, still in tune with nature's clock, became disgruntled once they realized they'd actually have to rise before the sun if they were to get their goods on outbound trains that, under daylight saving, left town an hour earlier.

"Rural people bombarded Congress with requests to repeal daylight saving time," Prerau said.

Among them, New Hampshire Gov. John H. Bartlett, who in April of 1920 went right to the top, urging President Woodrow Wilson by telegram to inform senators and congressmen "that New Hampshire demanded prompt action to remedy the injustice being done the rural communities through changes in railroad schedules to conform to daylight saving hours."