Talk:Daylight Saving Act of 1917

A fact from Daylight Saving Act of 1917 appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 August 2006. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Daylight Saving Time was first legislated in North America in June 1917 by the former country of Newfoundland?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2006/August.

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Discussion[edit]

I played around with the idea of adding that Newfoundland was the only country ever to follow daylight fully in North America but I'm not 100% yet that Newfoundland did prior to joining Canada (there could've been some holdouts though I doubt it) and I think that Mexico and several Caribbean countries follow daylight time throughout their region. Iainsona 14:36, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nova Scotia and Manitoba earlier?[edit]

Possible problem for us : http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/e.html suggests that Nova Scotia and Manitoba adopted daylight savings time in 1916 but doesn't state whether this was by an act of legislation or just following suit behind European countries. Newfoundland is still the first nation in North America to have adopted it throughout its territory if either holds true. Iainsona 14:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They were provinces of Canada, would that have any bearing on the ability enact legislation? Newfoundland was an Independent nation at the time and brought forward legislation. HJKeats 15:18, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Canada is a federal country with a great deal of responsibilities alloted to their respective provincial legislatures; currently for the 2007 change to conform to the new U.S. change, all the provinces are having to ratify the decision to change individually and severally. Not all of them have yet. As far as the Nova Scotian government's official website, the only law I've been able to find is from 1989 : http://www.gov.ns.ca/legislature/legc/statutes/timedefn.htm - the Time Definition Act of 1989 but it makes reference that this is "CHAPTER 469 OF THE REVISED STATUTES, 1989" which suggests that something might have existed before but it doesn't say when or how. Iainsona 15:26, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Internal link for Newfoundland's Legislative Assembly prior to Confederation[edit]

I can't find one. For the current one, there's Newfoundland_and_Labrador_House_of_Assembly and for the Colonial Building itself where the Legislative Assembly sat there's Colonial_Building. Can you find anything and if these are the only two, which would be better to link to do you think? Iainsona 14:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like fodder for another article :-)... We can use the Colonial Building if you wish for now. HJKeats 15:20, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Saving or Savings?[edit]

We should probably standardize whether we want to use 'Saving' or 'Savings' throughout. The article title has used 'Savings' which is the most common way to say it and appropriate if that was the exact name of the Act whereupon we should change them all to 'Savings'. The article on Daylight Saving Time doesn't use the 's' but does acknowledge the usage of the 's'.

Thanks to Samir धर्म for placing the article at DYK[edit]

Hi, and thanks for the kind words on the latest DYK from NL. It's always a treat to see your work getting recognized in the DYK section, the articles there are very enlightening and some are very well done in such a short period of 5 days. We hopefully will be up to your challenge to produce more DYK about NL and its people. There isn't any shortage of good material for sure from this very interesting and historical province. Again thanks for posting it on the front page. Kudos also has to go to my collaborator Iainsona, another DYK, he’s only 5 days himself as a Wikipedian. Thanks, HJKeats 01:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Echoing the thanks to Samir which I should have expressed much earlier. Pardon my lack of etiquette. Iainsona 06:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Surely the Act wasn't retroactive[edit]

The current text says the bill passed June 17, 1917, but the text also states that clocks advanced "at nine o'clock in the evening of the second Sunday in June". But the second Sunday of June 1917 was June 10. What gives here? Surely the Act was not retroactive; you can't change what the clocks did 10 days ago. Eubulides 01:50, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see the confusion and I'm at a loss to explain it. The information for this article came from the Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador Vol. 1 page 601. If I may quote directly from the text, which states as follows:

However, he introduced a third Bill in 1917, the Daylight Saving Act (8 Geo. V,c. 9), which was passed and became law on June 17 of that year, making Newfoundland the first area in North America to adopt daylight saving time. The bill stated that at nine o'clock in the evening of the second Sunday in June clocks would be put ahead to ten o'clock and would not be turned back until the last Sunday in September.

References listed in the article are: The Evening Herald (June 9, 1917), Evening Telegram (January 28, 1962), The Georgian (February 25, 1981), Newfoundland Quarterly (Summer 1977), Where and When (March, 1979) --HJKeats 17:01, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks, I've added some text to the main article to say that it's not clear exactly when DST first took effect in 1917. Eubulides 23:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]