[tz] Liberal and conservative time zones in 1950s Nashville

Paul Eggert eggert at cs.ucla.edu
Tue Apr 7 06:02:16 UTC 2015


In 1950s Nashville a public clock had dueling faces, one for conservatives and 
the other for liberals; the two sides didn't agree about the time of day. I 
haven't found a photo of this clock, nor have I tracked down the TIME magazine 
report cited below, but here's the story as told by the late American journalist 
John Seigenthaler, who was there:


"The two [newspaper] owners held strongly contrasting political and ideological 
views. Evans was a New South liberal, Stahlman an Old South conservative, and 
their two papers frequently clashed editorially, often on the same day.... In 
the 1950s as the state legislature was grappling with the question of whether to 
approve daylight saving time for the entire state, TIME magazine reported:

"'The Nashville Banner and The Nashville Tennessean rarely agree on anything but 
the time of day — and last week they couldn't agree on that.'

"It was all too true. The clock on the front of the building had two faces — The 
Tennessean side of the building facing west, the other, east. When it was high 
noon Banner time, it was 11 a.m. Tennessean time."


My source:

Seigenthaler J. For 100 years, Tennessean had it covered. The Tennessean 
2007-05-11, republished 2015-04-06. 
http://www.tennessean.com/story/insider/extras/2015/04/06/archives-seigenthaler-for-100-years-the-tennessean-had-it-covered/25348545/


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