Ben Franklin's Satirical Call for "Daylight Saving" in 1784
But the concept for "saving daylight" is credited [erroneously] to Benjamin Franklin, who was living in France in 1784 and whimsically wrote that Parisians could save on candles by adjusting their clocks in summer. Franklin wrote:
"...183 nights between 20 March and 20 September times 7 hours per night of candle usage equals 1,281 hours for a half year of candle usage. Multiplying by 100,000 families gives 128,100,000 hours by candlelight. Each candle requires half a pound of tallow and wax, thus a total of 64,050,000 pounds. At a price of thirty sols per pounds of tallow and wax (two hundred sols make one livre tournois), the total sum comes to 96,075,000 livre tournois."
Posted Mar 10, 2008
amanda
Responses to this thread:
todd:
David S.:
colby:
jessica:
That's a neat read! I watched something today that referred to Franklin as the originator of the idea of daylight savings time.
aaronh:
And here I though it was some Nebraska redneck farmer whining about how he couldn't see the corn in the morning
amanda:
Credit for DST goes to William Willett (http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/willett.html). We can thank him for stealing our hour of sleep Sunday. *grumble* 
