Charles F. Dowd (1825–1904) was a co-principal (with his wife Harriet M. Dowd) of the Temple Grove Ladies Seminary (now

Skidmore College Skidmore College is a Private school, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, New York. Approximately 2,650 students are enrolled at Skidmore pursuing a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Scien ...

) in

Saratoga Springs Saratoga Springs is a city in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 28,491 at the 2020 census. The name reflects the presence of mineral springs in the area, which has made Saratoga a popular resort destination for over ...

, New York. He was the first person to propose multiple

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it ...

s for any country, those for the

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

s of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. He did not propose their extension to the entire world, which was suggested by the Italian mathematician Quirico Filopanti, and championed by the Canadian engineer

Sandford Fleming Sir Sandford Fleming (January 7, 1827 – July 22, 1915) was a Scottish Canadian engineer and inventor. Born and raised in Scotland, he emigrated to colonial Canada at the age of 18. He promoted worldwide standard time zones, a prime meridian, ...

Charles Ferdinand Dowd, 1825-1904, bust LCCN2007681629

About 1863, he first proposed time zones for United States railways to teenage girls whom he was teaching. In 1869, he presented his idea to a committee of railway superintendents in New York. As a result, in 1870 he published a pamphlet entitled "A System of National Time for Railroads" wherein he proposed four time zones, each 15° wide, the time of each being one hour different from the next, named Washington, first, second, and third hours. The central meridian of the first zone was the Washington meridian. The borders of all zones were lines of

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lette ...

. In 1872, he modified his proposal so that the first zone was centered on the

75th meridian west The meridian 75° west of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, North America, the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, South America, the Pacific Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the ...

Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...

, with the others 90°, 105°, and 120° west of Greenwich. Now all had geographic borders, such as the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

for a portion of the border between the first and second zones. Except for meridians based on Greenwich, the system adopted by the railroad industry on 18 November 1883 ignored Dowd's proposal. The adopted system by William F. Allen, editor of the ''Traveler's Official Railway Guide'', had borders that passed through railway terminals, even some in major cities, like

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

, Buffalo,

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, and Charleston—these formed the border between the eastern and central time zones. It included a fifth time zone for eastern Canada, called Intercolonial Time after the

Intercolonial Railway The Intercolonial Railway of Canada , also referred to as the Intercolonial Railway (ICR), was a historic Canadian railway that operated from 1872 to 1918, when it became part of Canadian National Railways. As the railway was also completely o ...

serving eastern Canada. Each of these boundary cities had to adopt one of the two railroad zones or continue to use local mean

solar time Solar time is a calculation of the passage of time based on the position of the Sun in the sky. The fundamental unit of solar time is the day, based on the synodic rotation period. Two types of solar time are apparent solar time (sundial ti ...

. The

1918 Standard Time Act The Standard Time Act of 1918, also known as the Calder Act, was the first United States federal law implementing Standard time and Daylight saving time in the United States. It defined five time zones for the United States and authorized the ...

moved the borders to relatively rural areas. Dowd died underneath the wheels of a locomotive in Saratoga, New York in 1904.Derek Howse, ''Greenwich Time and the Discovery of the Longitude'', New York: Oxford. 1980.

References

External links

Harriet M. Dowd, wife
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dowd, Charles F. 1825 births 1904 deaths People from Saratoga Springs, New York Burials at Greenridge Cemetery