

Benjamin Franklin's Essay on Daylight Saving   - denzil_correa
http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin3.html

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denzil_correa
Is it just me or does anyone else feel there's more than a hint of satire in
this essay? Did Benjamin Franklin propose DST as a joke to save resources? I'm
a bit confused here.

~~~
ramblerman
I don't think he considered the actual idea a joke. The "tongue in cheek" tone
comes from the absurdity of suggesting something so simple as using actual
free daylight to do your work, whilst the rest of Paris seems to be stuck
solving optimal candle efficiency.

~~~
denzil_correa

        The "tongue in cheek" tone comes from the absurdity of 
        suggesting something so simple as using actual free 
        daylight to do your work, whilst the rest of Paris seems 
        to be stuck solving optimal candle efficiency.
    

Didn't he make the same mistake himself? I'm not sure if that was satirical
but

    
    
        Fourth. Every morning, as soon as the sun rises, let all 
        the bells in every church be set ringing; and if that is 
        not sufficient?, let cannon be fired in every street, to 
        wake the sluggards effectually, and make them open their 
        eyes to see their true interest.
    

was a much complex solution than the simple one adopted decades later -
altering the clocks of the city towers. That said, I'm not quite sure if such
clocks existed back then. I guess it would bode well for Benjamin Franklin if
they didn't!

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DavidWoof
I've seen this before, but it's always seemed curious to me. Does anyone know
the circumstances of this letter?

Was there really a journal _of_ Paris? Was it some kind of English language
paper for ex-pats, which would explain why Franklin was writing an letter in
English to it? Or was he writing a letter in English to a "Journal de Paris",
assuming that anybody educated enough to read was educated enough to read
English? Or is the whole "journal" thing just a joke, and it's just a pamphlet
for general publication making fun of the Parisians (which would also explain
the English language)?

On a broader note, Franklin and Jefferson spent an awful lot of time in Paris,
but I never run across any letters or writings of theirs in French. Do these
things exist but just don't show up often, was there some kind of social faux
pas that explains this, or was their French just kind of sucky?

~~~
mwd_
I think this was from Le Journal de Paris. "Journal" in this case actually
means "newspaper" -- it was a daily that ran from the 1770's to the 1840's. I
have a copy, but sadly it has no Benjamin Franklin essays in it.

~~~
DavidWoof
If it was actually published in Journal de Paris, why the weird "Journal of
Paris" thing? And did the actual _Journal de Paris_ really publish letters in
English sometimes? I've always heard Franklin was a big celebrity in
Paris(that definitely might be propaganda in American schoolbooks), but
English wasn't all that popular of a language at the time.

I can believe that Franklin was making a joking reference to Le Journal de
Paris, but it seems hard to believe this actually got published there.

~~~
ithkuil
I found a scan of the article in french:

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Franklin-...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Franklin-
Benjamin-Journal-de-Paris-1784.jpg)

The article starts in the "E C O N O M I E" section.

(note: the shape of the printed lowercase s looks like an f)

Don't be surprised that the he was able to write in French, as educated people
of that time knew French, much as educated people today know English. Moreover
he was ambassador to France during 1776–1785.

~~~
DavidWoof
Thank you very much!! I stand corrected. And with this to search with, I found
the complete original on Google Books (along with what seems to be a complete
set of Journal de Paris from the 18th century; I'm going to waste the whole
day reading bits of these.)

I'm not surprised at all that Jefferson and Franklin spoke French -- I always
assumed they did -- what surprises me is that we (at least in the US) see so
little evidence of it and that translations are presented as originals so
often.

This letter is a good example. Is the English translation even Franklin's? And
yet it's everywhere, while this French original doesn't even show up on the
Library of Congress Franklin site. That's what I find bizarre.

~~~
ithkuil
Don't worry, I suspected it was a recent prank too the first time I read it.
Wonder why we are so suspicious these days ...

------
yeison
Wait a second.. is Ben Franklin claiming that he has discovered that the sun
shines as soon as it rises?

~~~
erikschoster
I'd be interested to know a little more about the historical context
surrounding this piece - was Franklin responding to some well known problem of
the time like a rise in the price of candle wax or lamp oil? The essay seems
like an attempt to encourage people to conserve resources using the vehicles
of sarcasm and humor. I wonder how common it was at the time to wake up around
noon though?

Edit: tantalor sums it up better. :-)

~~~
philwelch
> I wonder how common it was at the time to wake up around noon though?

Despite all his quotes about "early to rise", Franklin was known, during his
time in Paris, as a party animal. This provides a lot of context to those
jokes about waking up around noon.

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pigou
Here's some context behind the essay:

<http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin.html>

------
pigou
I thought this was an interesting point: According to Wikipedia[1],

> Franklin did not propose DST; like ancient Rome, 18th-century Europe did not
> keep precise schedules.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time>

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ck2
Daylight savings has to only exist today for political reasons right?

Because it makes little scientific reason.

So what is the political logic then? I'm a little mystified.

Will people rise up and say "omg stop changing things, we're had DST for 200
years, let it be?"

Because they keep messing with the start date and end date, so it's not like
it's sacrilege.

I've always found it humorous that it always ended just before Halloween, just
in time for little kids to be put in danger in the early dark, they recently
moved it to early November though, so someone wised up.

~~~
chad_oliver
Daylight savings exists for an entirely practical reason: so that we can enjoy
daylight hours after we get home from work.

~~~
tjoff
Which, depending on where you live, is absolute nonsense.

Russia just abandoned DST and the rest of the world should too.

~~~
lttlrck
This needs updating then.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time>

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shmerl
I think the whole DST is just useless.

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bmmayer1
Interesting how Ben Franklin's solution was a prohibitive tax on window shades
and post-sunset transit, a quota on candles, and a citywide alarm clock. After
all those regulations that would be near impossible to enforce, maybe simply
changing the clocks was a far more elegant solution.

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chimpinee
What about wintertime, Mr Franklin?

Btw, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise" now
has a citation:

<http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2013/02/circadian-clock-obesity/>

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humbyvaldes
When I hear the reasons people dislike DST, they basically list reason that
unbeknownst to them is the reason we have DST.

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stretchwithme
Posting guards at candle shops? That doesn't sound like someone that believes
in freedom.

~~~
rollo_tommasi
Do you also think Jonathan Swift had a taste for Irish children?

