Setting the Clock Ahead

February 1942, and our country was at war. Americans were asked to set their clocks ahead one hour – for War Time.
We documented the event with the family Kodak. Dad set the hands forward. We went to bed early.

We of a certain age can remember the uncertainty of the winter of 1942 – our armed forces undermanned and under-armed. Friends and neighbors going away to fight in the Pacific. Little actions that we could take – War Stamps for a quarter dollar, paper drives, scrap metal drives, even setting ahead the clock – gave us the sense of doing something, however small, for the war effort.

War Time was intended to allow us more daylight hours after work, so that we could plant Victory Gardens. We faced food shortages, what with so many sway at war. I wonder, now, did Victory Gardens help? Or were they another small way to participate in World War II?

War Time is still with us as Daylight Savings Time, and it’s due to arrive this week. Seems to me that DST is the norm now – we have it eight months of the year.

Dac Crossley
March 8, 2012

“A simple measure of a country is to look at how many want in…and how many want out.” – Tony Blair

Comments

[Nicole of Clock Shop]

We all have different based on the continent we lived in. But still, its so nice to remember the old days. Thank you.

[Janice Pulliam]

No Daylight Savings Time here in Arizona. Today we are 2 hours behind you; tomorrow we will be 3. I like not having DST.
I also liked seeing the wallpaper in your photo. It was clever of the government to make civilians in the US feel that they were contributing to the war effort and helping their country even without fighting. That's certainly missing from today's wars. Some of those activities seem like wise things to do anyway---garden at home and put up food, save money, watch what we eat, and not use gasoline profligately. I don't want another war, but doing all those other things would be good for us.

[irene black]

Gardening & canning was a way of life for us-still is. My memories of the war were black-outs and the night trucks arrived to move everything we had to a secret location. My father was a biochemist working as a revenuer. He did the original American experiments on penicilin at a tiny distillery and supervised the production of alcohol, which was used to make synthetic rubber. No distillery produced whiskey during the war.

[Eileen Obser]

My father was drafted at age 35 in 1943. My uncle, downstairs, wasn't drafted (he had three kids and was missing three fingers from a factory accident) so he raised chickens in our shared yard in Queens, New York. Neighbors had Victory Gardens. I was a small girl, forced to play with a smaller, annoying girl cousin behind a chain link fence and I've published an essay about this early experience and called it "Prisoner of War."
Love that photo of your Dad; it's so clear!

[Shirley White]

"Thanks for the memories.... the War,... Victory Gardens,... Scrap Drives,... and the Time Change that began in 1942,...but also the wall paper and curio shelf brought more memories to my mind. My Aunt Lectie had wall paper like that in her kitchen, and my Aunt Lottie had a little corner shelf for "What Nots" that looked an awfully lot like Dac's Moms! I loved to go visit both of them. Thanks for sharing Dac's story and picture!!

PS Art was just telling the kids this week that this daylight savings thing started back during "the War,' and gave them the same reasons that Dac wrote about. I will make sure Art reads this email."
The above from my friend Alberta, in Oklahoma. shirley

[Mike Draney]

Wow, is that really your dad, Dac? I remember when I was supposed to take you out to see my field sites at Savannah River Site...I was a little bit apprehensive about taking you out there, it was 100 degrees out and everything. Then you showed up WITH YOUR DAD! Of course I had nothing to worry about, you dad was incredibly spry for a man in his 90's!

[Celia Yeary]

I was still sucking my thumb in 1942, but when we cleaned out Mother's house a few years, ago, we three sisters found of ration books, each with our names on them. Mine had a lot of stamps left--don't know what they were for.
But we do not need DST anymore--it's a lot of nonsense, and it takes me two weeks to get used to it. I say we begin a campaign to do away with it.

[Marja McGraw]

My mother-in-law still talked about her Victory Garden when she was in her 90s. She was pretty proud of it.

My grandmother, on the other hand, never quite got over "oleo" margarine. I learned a lot about these things from my mother and grandmother.

Thanks to them I developed a fondness for the 1940s.

[Jack Shuster]

Do you think we need it anymore? Arizona and Hawaii opt out.

[Patricia Gligor]

Dac,
I love the glimpses of history on your blog! I always learn something new from you. Today, I learned where DST originated. Fascinating!

[Shirley White]

I do remember the whole family pitching in to garden and can and share.
I do not recall anyone whining about what all they
had to do or do without. Everyone seemed to want to help!
I like the picture, too.

[kitti Reynolds]

wow, something I never knew.
Thanks, DAC,

[Art]

I was about 2 yrs old when WWII ended, no memory of that, but strong memories of the legacy of Victory Gardens in small town Vermont. The women and children in our neighborhood had cultivated large gardens during the war which were still being actively tended 10-15 years after. The women had also organized to help each other during harvest and rotated around the homes to help with canning -- some kitchens were just more convenient than others to spread out the jars, have large pots boiling on the stoves and so on. Our house specialized in canning beans, corn and tomatoes -- not sure why, but there'd be a half-dozen or more days each year days when it seemed as if a factory was set up in our kitchen. You can be sure that the available kids were dragooned into the processing, largely carrying things around, hauling boxes of mason jars to nearby homes in our wagons. That was quite a legacy from the War.

[Caroline Clemmons]

I wouldn't mind DST if the powers that be would just leave it set to the rest of the world's and not change its starting time from one era to the next.Nice photo.