Tag Archives: History

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Spring Ahead: Daylight Saving Time Begins Tonight for Many

Posted on March 9, 2013 | 1 comment

When Benjamin Franklin wrote An Economical Project, his 1794 discourse in which he proposed the idea that would become our current Daylight Saving Time, it probably didn’t occur to him that the world would be using his system of adjusting human activities to maximize natural daylight more than 200 years later.

It also probably didn’t occur to him that others would take so long to embrace it. Attempts to legislate Daylight Saving were still widely ridiculed at the beginning of the 20th century. (It took the energy needs of WWI for many to finally enact them.) Standard times, brought about in the U.S. and Canada by the needs of the railways, which straddled various locales, also took a few decades to eventually pass into law.

This is a wonderful article on the history of Daylight Saving Time and time zones, which includes all kinds of quirkiness and variations. (One year, 23 different pairs of DST start and end dates were used in Iowa alone.) Indeed, cities and countries around the world begin, end and practice Daylight Savings at a variety of times and in a variety of ways.

Most of the U.S. begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. (local time) on the second Sunday in March and reverts to standard time at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday in November.

How does Daylight Savings Time impact safety, particularly on the roads? Apparently the first dark evenings in Fall, when the time changes back, see an increase in pedestrian and auto accidents, as some people readjust to driving in darkness. In 2007, Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. was moved to the first weekend in November, in the hopes of getting more Halloween Trick-or-Treaters out during daylight and presumed safety, which may be good for the youngest Trick-or-Treaters.

Sleep deprivation is an issue that can affect people just after Daylight Saving Time kicks in in Spring. Cows, too, can be a little flummoxed, say Indiana and other dairy farmers — to the degree that their milk production suffers. Interestingly, Indiana only adopted Daylight Saving Time in 2005. Arizona is the only state that currently opts out of Daylight Savings, although the Navajo nations within it opt in — are you confused yet? In addition some Amish communities, particularly in Ohio, remain on Standard Time, which they (wonderfully) call Slow Time.

Here’s hoping you enjoy your Slow Time, your sunlight, and the wonder of time in general, whether you practice Daylight Savings or not.

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman

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Photo Friday: Occident Flour

Posted on November 18, 2011 | 5 comments

My love for painted advertising signs on the sides of brick buildings is well documented here. It’s not unusual for me to yell “Stop the car!” or slow my family on a walk to capture one with a camera. More commonplace in earlier decades, they used blank brick canvasses to sell everything from mining equipment to toothpaste. I love coming upon them on country roadsides and in city alleyways. This bright one near St. Johnsbury, Vermont, was no doubt repainted and lovingly refurbished to its old-timey feel. I don’t think the site is a general store any longer.

I’ve since learned that Occident Flour was produced by the Russell-Miller Milling Company in the midwest from 1894-the early 1950s. It was sold to the Peavey Company in 1962 and acquired by ConAgra in 1982. That trajectory, along with newer advertising methods, partially explains the loss of painted signs for individual concerns.

Have you seen and photographed something unusual, whimsical, beautiful, or otherwise interesting in your travels? Has anything surprised you or caused you to pause? Or have you simply experienced a small, lovely moment that you wanted to capture? If so, I hope you’ll share with us by leaving a comment with a link to your photo. I look forward to seeing it!

 

Photo by Susan Sachs Lipman, Graphic from Occident Flour

You may also be interested in:

Photo Friday: Ghost Sign
Photo Friday: San Francisco Storefront
Photo Friday: Tamalpais Motel at Dusk


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Posted in Butter and Egg, Design, Home Ec., Lost Arts, Nostalgia, Odes, Recipes, Road Trip, Snapshot, To Market, Vanishing Breed, Vintage

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Spring Ahead! Daylight Saving Time Begins Tonight for Many

Posted on March 12, 2011 | 1 comment

When Benjamin Franklin wrote An Economical Project, his 1794 discourse in which he proposed the idea that would become our current Daylight Saving Time, it probably didn’t occur to him that the world would be using his system of adjusting human activities to maximize natural daylight more than 200 years later.

It also probably didn’t occur to him that others would take so long to embrace it. Attempts to legislate Daylight Saving were still widely ridiculed at the beginning of the 20th century. (It took the energy needs of WWI for many to finally enact them.) Standard times, brought about in the U.S. and Canada by the needs of the railways, which straddled various locales, also took a few decades to eventually pass into law.

This is a wonderful article on the history of Daylight Saving Time and time zones, which includes all kinds of quirkiness and variations. (One year, 23 different pairs of DST start and end dates were used in Iowa alone.) Indeed, cities and countries around the world begin, end and practice Daylight Savings at a variety of times and in a variety of ways.

Most of the U.S. begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. (local time) on the second Sunday in March and reverts to standard time at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday in November.

How does Daylight Savings Time impact safety, particularly on the roads? Apparently the first dark evenings in Fall, when the time changes back, see an increase in pedestrian and auto accidents, as some people readjust to driving in darkness. In 2007, Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. was moved to the first weekend in November, in the hopes of getting more  Halloween Trick-or-Treaters out during daylight and presumed safety, which may be good for the youngest Trick-or-Treaters.

Sleep deprivation is an issue that can affect people just after Daylight Saving Time kicks in in Spring. Cows, too, can be a little flummoxed, say Indiana dairy farmers — to the degree that their milk production suffers. Interestingly, Indiana only adopted Daylight Saving Time in 2006. Arizona is the only state that currently opts out of Daylight Savings, although the Navajo nations within it opt in — are you confused yet? In addition some Amish communities, particularly in Ohio, remain on Standard Time, which they (wonderfully) call Slow Time.

Here’s hoping you enjoy your Slow Time, your sunlight, and the wonder of time in general, whether you practice Daylight Savings or not.

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman

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Photo Friday: Ghost Sign

Posted on January 28, 2011 | 9 comments

While in New York (site of last week’s Photo Friday), I became completely entranced with “Ghost Signs”, faded advertising signs painted on the sides of brick buildings. Most of these are from decades ago. Some are faded beyond recognition. Many offer goods and services that have seen more popular times: millinery, lithography, shirtwaists, coatfronts, sewing machines, steam heat, furs and skins, paper and twine.

As I walked around Manhattan’s streets, gazing up and peering around corners for ghost signs, I felt like an urban archeologist. Each sign held a clue to past generations. Each felt like a surprise to discover, as well as a fleeting treat. I knew that the next time I might pass this way, the sign could very well be faded completely, lost to memory — or lost to new construction, as glass and steel might completely cover it up, much the way the tearing down of old buildings to make way for new ones may have led to some of these old ghost signs seeing the light of day once more.

I try to photograph ghost signs wherever I go. I have found New York City and Portland, Oregon, to be especially rich places for them, in addition to forgotten main streets and quiet roads where rural barns advertise tobaccos and colas. Look for an upcoming post that will feature more.

In the meantime, keep observing, wandering, and being open to a surprise or two. Last week reader Alice sent a link to this story on Slow Photography, which is more about the joyful process of taking pictures than it is about the finished result. (Thank you Alice. See Alice’s photos on flickr.)

Have you seen and photographed something unusual, whimsical, beautiful, or otherwise interesting in your travels? Has anything surprised you or caused you to pause? Or have you simply experienced a small, lovely moment that you wanted to capture? If so, I hope you’ll share with us by leaving a comment with a link to your photo. I look forward to seeing it!

Photo by Susan Sachs Lipman

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Posted in Design, Field Trip, Lost Arts, Nostalgia, Snapshot, Vanishing Breed

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From Treehugger: Frugal Green Living Posters

Posted on September 14, 2010 | 7 comments

Canning, victory gardening, carpooling, conserving resources, living frugally — There are a lot of parallels between a whole swath of trends and activities today and those from the 1940s. In both periods, outside forces (war, the economy, the environment) have caused a lot of us to take stock and change some of our homefront habits. In the process, many of us discovered or rediscovered some relatively lost arts on the way to using less.

The always-relevant Treehugger has offered a terrific blog post, Frugal Green Living: Posters for the Movement, which features a collection of 1940s posters that, while making statements urging people to reconsider wasteful habits, are also themselves wonderful examples of message-oriented graphic design at its mid-century zenith.

I love these for their bold graphics and nostalgic style and marvel that they are fairly relevant today – except for the last one, of course. Though Treehugger makes the point that cooking fat is now collected for biodiesel fuel, rather than to make explosives. And that is undoubtedly a good thing.

Posters: Minneapolis Public Library

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Posted in Design, Lost Arts, Nostalgia, Odes, Sustainability

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Take a Walk into Mill Valley’s History

Posted on June 1, 2009 | 4 comments

My husband, Lippy, recently led an intrepid group of us back in time 100 years to Mill Valley’s Horse and Buggy Days. He did this as a docent with the Mill Valley Historical Society’s “Walk into History”, an amazing event that takes a different path every year to show people the very rich history of our old (by California standards) railroad town.

Lippyguide

The first train arrived in 1889. It was a branch of the North Coast & Pacific Railroad and ran on a narrow-gauge single-track, then a double-track to the station. (The station was moved further downtown in 1903 to the spot that remained the train depot, and then a bus depot, and is now the Depot Bookstore).

In 1896, the Mill Valley & Mt. Tamalpais Scenic Railway installed standard-gauge track for its runs up the mountain. There was a telegraph office at the station. The early train made about 14 trips a day to the San Francisco Ferry. A trip to San Francisco by train and ferry took about 50 minutes at the turn of the century. Today, by car and ferry, it would take about an hour.

Lumber was also an essential part of early Mill Valley’s history. The Mill Valley Lumber Company, which has changed hands many times, remains in a spot near downtown. The railroad passed through here as late as 1940 for passengers and 1955 for freight.

lumberyard2

This sign is still on one of the buildings: Railroad employees must not move engines or cars beyond this point.

RR

We stopped at a wonderful stately Victorian on our town’s main street that was originally built as a summer home for the San Francisco family of George Lingard Payne, of Payne Bolt Works. Payne planted a row of magnolia trees for his wife, who was originally from the South, and the home, which the family used as a secondary residence, was called “The Magnolias”.

One of the great things about our walk was that we went back through modern driveways and discovered remnants of the past I’d never seen before, even though I walk and bike down this street all the time. Behind one such newer apartment building was the Carriage House for The Magnolias, which is now a private home. Its wrought iron gates were originally used on the elevators at the St. Francis Hotel.

Carriage House2

Poplar Brae, built by Scotsman William Terry in 1893, is a wonderful example of the sweeping Victorian verandas that surround some of Mill Valley’s original homes. It also has Asian elements, which some western avant-gardists were discovering at the turn of the last century.

PoplarBrae

Lippy had us pause and imagine the days when the train ran constantly down Miller Avenue, past these homes. Locomotives were powered by wood, and then oil. They were noisy, smoky and smelly. Vehicles were horse-drawn — cars were still few in 1910 — and the roads were dusty in summer and muddy in winter.

In 1893, only three homes had telephone service. Untreated sewage ran through a pipe down Miller. Streetlamps arrived in 1902, and lighting until then was by kerosene or coal oil. (No wonder so many wooden structures burned down.) Cooking was by coal or wood. Street paving began in 1917.

By all accounts, people walked a great deal, to and from the train, and also to the mountain for a hike. Now, of course, most of us drive to the mountain. (It is a long walk.) We’ve traded train noise for car noise, but our air is undoubtedly cleaner and our lives generally easier, with more conveniences at our disposal.

Back near downtown, this house was built by fireman Charles Thoney, who moved his family permanently to the home after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. (This pattern was repeated all over Mill Valley, whose early residents often used it for summers and vacations.) A Thoney descendant still lives in Mill Valley, though not in this house.

Thoneyhouse

I played my cards right and got to be the tour’s photo holder.

suz2

Mill Valley 3rd graders learn about their town’s history and, of course, many of us keep learning about it, thanks in large part to the work of the Mill Valley Historical Society, who create the Walk into History each year and help maintain the History Room in the Library, which houses archives and treasures from our town’s early days.

Thanks, especially to Chuck Oldenburg, and to the Mill Valley Historical Society members who provided so much research and rich detail to the Walk.

HistoricalSociety

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman and Bettina Mow


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