Railroad Time, Standard Time

This E. Howard Wall Regulator clock hung in the offices of the Baltimore Ohio Railroad. Railroads spurred standardization in several facets of industrial life: rail equipment, business organization, and train schedules. Until 1883, Americans followed solar time, each locality setting clocks at noon on the basis of when the sun reached its highest point. However, each railroad maintained a single time across its entire line, leading to discrepancies in the schedules of competing lines as well as in localities across the continent. In 1883, a group of railroad superintendents instituted the new system of standard time with four time zones across the continental United States.

Source: Wall Regulator, c. 1880, E. Howard Clock Co., Boston, Massachusetts—National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.