10. The Candy Industry Supposedly Lobbied for Daylight Savings Time
Despite its regular appearance, Daylight Savings Time has long been a contentious issue with some states choosing not to adopt the standard and others moving to drop it. Daylight Savings Time was enacted with the idea of setting clocks forward one hour in spring and backward one hour in autumn to maximize the number of daylight people can engage with during their normal waking and working hours. Daylight Savings Time was also believed to reduce energy use and was especially popular during the American energy crisis of the 1970s.
In autumn, we set our clocks “back,” thereby gaining an hour. This causes mornings to be brighter but darkness to come earlier in the evening. Up until the 1980s, Daylight Savings Time fell before Halloween, which meant trick-or-treating began earlier in the day and ended in the early evening when it became too dark to see.
It didn’t go unnoticed by the candy industry that Daylight Savings Time was robbing children of time that could be spent collecting their candy, having been purchased by generous adults. It was reported that, in 1985, the candy lobby put a pumpkin bucket filled with candy on the seat of every senator before a hearing on Daylight Savings Time. The candy industry denies this claim, but anyone familiar with lobbying would certainly think it’s a plausible tale.