Daylight Saving Time
Ask Americans why they still turn their clocks backward and forward twice a year, and they’ll likely cite the same reason: farmers said they needed more daylight in the field. This, however, is mostly a myth. While the farm lobby did participate in the policy debate a century ago, they were actually lobbying against daylight saving time (DST). So who lobbied for DST if not the farmers? Industrialists and politicians, including President Woodrow Wilson, who thought that increasing daylight hours would decrease demand for electricity. Data remains mixed on whether DST does, in fact, reduce energy consumption to a significant degree. But it has succeeded in another one of its initial goals: getting more people to shop. That trend continues for many retailers today.