For those of you bellyaching about the huge hassle of moving your clocks forward or backward an hour twice a year, let me introduce you to the good ol’ days with solar time, local time and the fight for and against standard time.

The railroads made things better.

For extra fun, check out the not-at-all-complicated instructions for figuring out your Local Civil Time from Rawleigh’s 1932 Good Health Guide, Cook Book and Year Book.

Transcript:

The difference between Local Civil and Standard Time

The time given for rising and setting of the sun and moon on the Rawleigh Almanac pages is the “local civil” time given in the U.S. Naval Observatory’s Nautical Almanac.

Local civil time was used before our present “standard time” was adopted.

To change the local civil time used in almanac to the standard time in general use you must know your difference in time from the nearest meridian, the time of which governs your standard time. if you are on or very close to this meridian your local civil time and standard time are the same.

For example, these two times are the same for all people living on a line north and south running near Reno, Nevada; Cheyenne, Wyoming; through Memphis, Tenn.; and New Orleans, La.; and near Philadelphia, Pa.

People living west of these cities should fine how many minutes they are west of the standard meridian and add it to the time given in the almanac.

Those living east of the above cities should subtract the number of minutes’ distance between them and the meridian.

To obtain the number of minutes you are from your meridian first find the distance in the number of degrees of longitude; then allow one-half hour for each 7 1/2 degrees.