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Tom Bartels, above, works on a clock in his home antique clock repair workshop shop.
As dusk creeps in earlier and earlier every day and that extra hour of sleep that comes with the end of Daylight Saving Time grows ever more attractive, one has to ask, "exactly why do we do this?"
Benjamin Franklin first came up with the idea of Daylight Saving Time in the 1760s.
"He came up with the idea in order to conserve tallow wax," said Thomas Bartels, local antique clock repairman and former executive director of the National Clock & Watch Museum. "It never really caught on."
The idea went untouched for almost a century and a half, before the Germans initiated the concept during World War I in order to conserve fuel, Bartels said.
The British then picked up on the idea, and then it once again dropped for a while.
"People do it today basically to extend the daylight hours during the summer time," Bartels said. "Fuel conservation is a secondary issue.
"Now you hear more about industries like the charcoal briquet industry always pushing for Daylight Saving Time."
While the concept is practiced mostly worldwide, there are a few exceptions.
"There are places like Hawaii, and Arizona where it just doesn't matter," Bartels said. "So they don't need to do it.
"There are several places in the country, that for whatever reason don't participate."
And then there is China.
"They've got one time zone for the entire country, and the country covers at least four time zones," Bartels said. "So 6 a.m. is like 1 p.m. in some parts of the country."
Bartels picked up most of his clock knowledge while serving as director of the national museum, located in Lancaster County, Pa.
"I was there for 13 and a half years," he said. "Clocks can take you all over the place."
In Bartels' case, he has served as a consultant for clock collections at the Hermitage and The Forbidden City in China.
He said time keeping has played a surprisingly important role in world history.
"Most people don't realize the role that time keeping has played in society," he said. "In technological advances, there are just a lot of historical aspects.
He said the drive toward more accurate time keeping helped spur on the Industrial Revolution.
"One sort of aided the other," he said.
One of time keeping's most storied contributions to society has been in the search for longitude.
The process of finding the exact position of those vertical lines on the globe was developed through finding an accurate timepiece that could handle the changing environmental conditions on board a ship.
Essentially, the concept of longitude centered around the idea that the earth rotates 15 degrees per hour. At any given hour, it is noon at one line of longitude on the globe.
Thus, if it is 11 a.m. where you are and noon at Greenwich, England (zero median), you are 15 degrees to the west of Greenwich.
"There was a huge reward posted by the English crown to whoever could invent a method to accurately measure longitude, because everyone knew the importance of it," Bartels said. "It gave a huge advantage to England in ruling the seas, being able to pinpoint a position."
Just walking around his house is a lesson in clock history.
Bartels owns about 60 antique clocks, ranging in age from a clock made in 1690, before George Washington was born, to a "fairly new" piece made in the mid-1800s.
At any given time, Bartels has about 15 to 20 clocks in his shop.
He works mostly on local pieces, and does free pick up, delivery and appraisal with each repair. He offers services as a purchasing consultant.
For more information about Bartel's business, call (775) 265-5541 or (775) 901-1848.
- Joey Crandall can be reached at jcrandall@recordcourier.com or at (775) 782-5121, ext. 212.
Benjamin Franklin first came up with the idea of Daylight Saving Time in the 1760s.
"He came up with the idea in order to conserve tallow wax," said Thomas Bartels, local antique clock repairman and former executive director of the National Clock & Watch Museum. "It never really caught on."
The idea went untouched for almost a century and a half, before the Germans initiated the concept during World War I in order to conserve fuel, Bartels said.
The British then picked up on the idea, and then it once again dropped for a while.
"People do it today basically to extend the daylight hours during the summer time," Bartels said. "Fuel conservation is a secondary issue.
"Now you hear more about industries like the charcoal briquet industry always pushing for Daylight Saving Time."
While the concept is practiced mostly worldwide, there are a few exceptions.
"There are places like Hawaii, and Arizona where it just doesn't matter," Bartels said. "So they don't need to do it.
"There are several places in the country, that for whatever reason don't participate."
And then there is China.
"They've got one time zone for the entire country, and the country covers at least four time zones," Bartels said. "So 6 a.m. is like 1 p.m. in some parts of the country."
Bartels picked up most of his clock knowledge while serving as director of the national museum, located in Lancaster County, Pa.
"I was there for 13 and a half years," he said. "Clocks can take you all over the place."
In Bartels' case, he has served as a consultant for clock collections at the Hermitage and The Forbidden City in China.
He said time keeping has played a surprisingly important role in world history.
"Most people don't realize the role that time keeping has played in society," he said. "In technological advances, there are just a lot of historical aspects.
He said the drive toward more accurate time keeping helped spur on the Industrial Revolution.
"One sort of aided the other," he said.
One of time keeping's most storied contributions to society has been in the search for longitude.
The process of finding the exact position of those vertical lines on the globe was developed through finding an accurate timepiece that could handle the changing environmental conditions on board a ship.
Essentially, the concept of longitude centered around the idea that the earth rotates 15 degrees per hour. At any given hour, it is noon at one line of longitude on the globe.
Thus, if it is 11 a.m. where you are and noon at Greenwich, England (zero median), you are 15 degrees to the west of Greenwich.
"There was a huge reward posted by the English crown to whoever could invent a method to accurately measure longitude, because everyone knew the importance of it," Bartels said. "It gave a huge advantage to England in ruling the seas, being able to pinpoint a position."
Just walking around his house is a lesson in clock history.
Bartels owns about 60 antique clocks, ranging in age from a clock made in 1690, before George Washington was born, to a "fairly new" piece made in the mid-1800s.
At any given time, Bartels has about 15 to 20 clocks in his shop.
He works mostly on local pieces, and does free pick up, delivery and appraisal with each repair. He offers services as a purchasing consultant.
For more information about Bartel's business, call (775) 265-5541 or (775) 901-1848.
- Joey Crandall can be reached at jcrandall@recordcourier.com or at (775) 782-5121, ext. 212.
