TIME ZONES - An 1883 Innovation By the Railroads Became Part of Ordinary Life - The underlying cause of confusion was simply that the United States had no time standard. Each town or city would keep its own solar time, setting clocks so noon was when the sun was directly overhead. That made perfect sense for anyone who never left town. But it became complicated for travelers. Noon in Boston would be a few minutes before noon in New York City. And Philadelphians experienced noon a few minutes after New Yorkers did. And on and on, across the nation. For railroads, which needed reliable timetables, this created a huge problem. Something had to be done, and by the end of 1883 the United States, for the most part, was operating on four time zones. Within a few years the entire world followed that example. So it's fair to say the American railroads changed the way the entire planet told time.

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Time Zones

Why We Have Time Zones

An 1883 Innovation By the Railroads Became Part of Ordinary Life

by Robert McNamara

Time zones, a novel concept in the 1800s, were created by railroad officials who convened meetings in 1883 to deal with a major headache. It was becoming impossible to know what time it was.

The underlying cause of confusion was simply that the United States had no time standard. Each town or city would keep its own solar time, setting clocks so noon was when the sun was directly overhead.

That made perfect sense for anyone who never left town.

But it became complicated for travelers. Noon in Boston would be a few minutes before noon in New York City. And Philadelphians experienced noon a few minutes after New Yorkers did. And on and on, across the nation.

For railroads, which needed reliable timetables, this created a huge problem.

"Fifty-six standards of time are now employed by the various railroads of the country in preparing their schedules of running times," reported the front page of the New York Times on April 19, 1883.

Something had to be done, and by the end of 1883 the United States, for the most part, was operating on four time zones. Within a few years the entire world followed that example.

So it's fair to say the American railroads changed the way the entire planet told time.

The Decision to Standardize Time

The expansion of the railroads in the years following the Civil War only made the confusion over all the local time zones seem worse.

Finally, in the spring of 1883, the leaders of the nation's railroads sent representatives to a meeting of what was called the General Railroad Time Convention.

On April 11, 1883, in St. Louis, Missouri, railroad officials agreed to create five time zones in North America: Provincial, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific.

The concept of standard time zones had actually been suggested by several professors going back to the early 1870’s.

At first it was suggested that there be two time zones, set to when noon occurred in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans.

But that would create potential problems for people living in the West, so the idea eventually evolved into four "time belts" set to straddle the 75th, 90th, 105th, and 115th meridians.

On October 11, 1883, the General Railroad Time Convention met again in Chicago. And it was formally decided that the new standard of time would take effect a little more than a month later, on Sunday, November 18, 1883.

As the date for the big change approached, newspapers published numerous articles explaining how the process would work.

The shift only amounted to a few minutes for many people. In New York City, for instance, the clocks would be turned back four minutes.

Going forward, noon in New York would occur at the same moment as noon in Boston, Philadelphia, and other cities in the East.

In many towns and cities jewelers used the event to drum up business by offering to set watches to the new time standard.

And though the new time standard was not sanctioned by the federal government, the Naval Observatory in Washington offered to send, by telegraph, a new time signal so people could synchronize their watches.

Resistance to Standard Time

It seems most people had no objection to the new time standard, and it was widely accepted as a sign of progress. Travelers on the railroads, in particular, appreciated it.

An article in the New York Times on November 16, 1883, noted, "The passenger from Portland, Me., to Charleston, S.C., or from Chicago to New Orleans, can make the entire run without changing his watch."

As the time change was instituted by the railroads, and voluntarily accepted by many towns and cities, some incidents of confusion appeared in newspapers. 

A report in the Philadelphia Inquirer on November 21, 1883 described an incident where a debtor had been ordered to report to a Boston courtroom at 9:00 on the previous morning.

The newspaper story concluded:

"According to custom, the poor debtor is allowed one hour's grace. He appeared before the commissioner at 9:48 o'clock, standard time, but the commissioner ruled that it was after ten o'clock and defaulted him. The case will probably be brought before the Supreme Court."

Incidents like that demonstrated the need for everyone to adopt to the new standard time. However, in some places there was lingering resistance.

An item in the New York Times the following summer, on June 28, 1884, detailed how the city of Louisville, Kentucky, had given up on standard time. Louisville set all its clocks ahead 18 minutes to return to solar time.

The problem in Louisville was that while the banks adopted to the time standard of the railroad, other businesses did not. So there was persistent confusion about when business hours actually ended each day.

Of course, throughout the 1880’ most businesses saw the value of moving permanently to standard time. By the 1890’s standard time and time zones were accepted as ordinary.

Time Zones Went Worldwide

Britain and France had each adopted national time standards decades earlier, but as they were smaller countries, there was no need for more than one time zone.

The successful adoption of standard time in the United States in 1883 set an example for how time zones could spread across the globe.

The following year a time convention in Paris began the work of designating time zones worldwide. Eventually the time zones around the globe we know today came into use.

The United States government made the time zones official by passing the Standard Time Act in 1918.

Today most people simply take time zones for granted, and have no idea that time zones were actually a solution devised by the railroads.

Robert J. McNamara has been writing and editing about history for ThoughtCo.com since 2007.

Experience

Robert began working professionally as a journalist during his sophomore year of college in New York City. During his magazine career he worked on the staff at Rolling Stone, and as a freelance writer and fact checker he was affiliated with major magazines including New York, Esquire, Spy, and the magazine sections of major newspapers including the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News.

In the digital era, Robert was was one of the first freelance editors hired in 1996 by a then-upstart company on the Web, Amazon.com. He stayed with Amazon.com for seven years, and was the company’s first nonfiction editor and later its first history editor. During the years that Amazon.com employed a thriving editorial department, Robert wrote articles about books and authors, interviewed historians, and published countless reviews.

With About.com (now ThoughtCo.com), Robert launched the History1800s site in late 2007. During the site’s existence it has attracted a large audience of history buffs, students, and general readers who often arrive while Googling an endless variety of questions about history.

Education

Robert studied history and journalism at New York University.

Robert McNamara

"Working at magazines in my 20s was essentially my graduate school. In the ridiculously busy office of a national magazine you receive a solid grounding in lifelong skills such as reporting, research, and writing with some style. You learn to address a broad audience. And the discipline of meeting intractable deadlines is invaluable.

"While working at Rolling Stone early in my career I’d spend typical workdays concerned with bands like Hüsker Dü, The Minutemen, or The Replacements. Yet on the F Train going home to Brooklyn I’d be reading fairly serious history books. I’d occasionally write freelance articles dealing with historic subjects, but at the time there wasn’t much opportunity to consistently write about history for a broad and engaged audience. The emergence of the Web, and my eventual affiliation with About.com, made that possible.

"My writing about history is grounded in my early journalistic training. It’s not enough to be accurate. What you write about history should also be engaging. It should tell the reader why something mattered. And it should provide clarity, in a style suitable for computer screens or smartphones. Ideally, it should inform and entertain.

"History matters. And the stories of the 19th century matter a lot. We can’t fully understand our lives today without knowing something of the struggles and triumphs of people in the 1800s."

A note to publishers: I do not work at the About.com office in New York City, and while I appreciate receiving review copies, it's best to contact me first to confirm my correct mailing address. 

A note to readers: It’s great to hear from readers and I appreciate questions and suggestions. However, while I’ve done some genealogical work (and learned a lot about Irish records in the process), I’m not a professional genealogist. And in nearly all cases I wouldn’t be the best person to ask about finding ancestors.

https://www.thoughtco.com/why-we-have-time-zones-1773953